the daughter of a mentally ill mother

heard from her.

2012-01-23T01:42:00.002-05:00

The day after I wrote the last entry, I received 2 letters at my address. One had been forward from a previous apartment I had. And they had the same printed letter inside:

"i have been trying to reconnect with you. i hope i have reached you at this address. you know i care a great deal about my daughter, and i welcome you to visit with open arms. why have you stayed away so long? we always had a trusting affectionate relationship! i did not know which address, so i am sending this letter to all of them. please write, phone or email me before i visit so i know you are okay. [contact info edited out.] the trip to visit me is only 6 hours away. let's meet this winter! i'll be praying for you. love, mommy."

what is sad is that no, i don't want to contact her. i don't want to write, or call. i don't want to visit her, or see her. but in the same breath, i will say it was good to see her send something so i know she is alive. how do i balance out these feelings? it worries me to see her say things like "before i visit..." it gets my anxiety up immediately. but reading between the lines, it sounds like she is too tired or too poor to make the trip. phew. how will this end when i am 16 hours further from her than i am now?

what is the end point for all of this?

a new year, indeed.

2012-01-16T02:49:00.002-05:00

hello, my friends out there in the void. i've been terrible about writing lately, and i'm so sorry. i am still very much here, and very much committed to this blog and the folks reading far and wide.

the truth is... well, the last two months have been poignant. not because my mother was in them, or because everything has fixed itself. but because i have made decisions. and not just make them. take action on them.

in december, i celebrated my 29th birthday. for the very first time in years, i spent it exactly how i wanted. compartmentalized all my friends into the events i wanted them to be a part of. didn't even blink an eye when two of my supposed best friends weren't even there. it didn't bother me. i felt something in me letting go of all that concern. somehow, i had decided that this was my last birthday in new york. and i told them all that. whether they wanted to be a part of it or not was their own issue. i spent the weekend with the people that i wanted, and did exactly what i wanted without the burden i often put on myself of trying to make it easy on everyone else.

new years was the same thing. told the two people i cared about to come over and we'd make dinner and watch the ball drop while watching movies. and that was that. quiet. simple. not the stupid annoying house party in the city that most people would have gone to. just what i wanted. what i needed.

i knew in my heart that this was my last new years here. and 3 days later, i sent an email off to the vp of my company, asking about transferring near my brother down south. word came back that i can leave whenever i want, and i've set the date for two months from now. somehow, i'm still amazed i had it in me. i had a small panic attack last week as i called to ask for a moving date in april. suddenly freaked out that i was leaving all my friends, most of my family, and the life i've been living for five years.

but now, now i feel excited. free. giant weight off my shoulders. like now that the action has been taken, i can take a deep breath and just start planning my life out a little more than it has been planned out in the past. a shiny new start to my life as a belated birthday gift. no more treading water, or waiting for something to happen.

no longer waiting for my life to bloom like irises.

the only thing i hate is this dread. dread that my mother will show up and fuck it up. dread that i'll never forgive her. dread that she'll follow me there. dread that i'll never see her again. i'm worried about her. she deleted her blog so i can't check in on her that way. and i haven't heard a peep from her in a month. it's almost... too quiet. sick, isn't it? i don't want anything to do with her, and i still can't help wonder if she's ok. wonder if she's sick and homeless, or hospitalized? or imprisoned? but i want to keep moving forward. not look back. not keep myself shackled to this life. the workaholic life that kept me breathing, dealing with the trauma of losing her like that. i have spent five long years paying penance for something i didn't do. i don't want to punish myself anymore. i don't want to refuse myself foward-motion, just because i'm afraid of where she is.

this is going to be more than just a new year. it's going to be a new approach to my life, and my acceptance of the grief and the loss. it's going to be a new chapter in moving on with my life, and without her in it.

coming out of it

2011-11-07T09:30:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately. I used to fear becoming my mother. I used to worry that admitting I had cycles of depression meant that I was in danger of becoming her... but watching my own life for the past 3 weeks, and all the positivity that has been in it, I think it's something else.

I think I have post traumatic stress disorder. I think I've been suffering under it for 6 years. Why else would I now feel so in control? So happy and joyous and hopeful? This is the place where I used to wonder if it was a manic phase. If it was the other half of the shoe that kept cycling up and down with the depression. But this feels different this time. As if I've forgiven something and moved on, and reclaiming the little pieces of myself that have been missing for so long.

Maybe I don't need some kind of label on the last few years. I should just enjoy this, and keep working on it. But there is a feeling of freedom in my heart that I can't remember having in a very, very long time. I love this feeling more than I could ever describe in words.

joyous.

2011-10-09T23:59:00.004-04:00

i am so sorry for the long hiatus. my imac has finally been returned to me with a new hard drive, thanks to the crew at apple. i was going through withdrawal! there's been so much i wanted to write about. the past few weeks have been so eventful, wonderful, but concerning all at the same time...

2011 continues to be my year for personal growth. every week that has gone by gets better than the last... and not because my mother is in the hospital, or on medication. but because i feel like i'm healing more and more. this could all be in my head. but i don't think so. i have noticed small changes in my daily routine that were never there before. my eating habits are the simplest example. once upon a time, i ate out for almost every meal. fast food and take out were my standbys, my usuals... home cooked meals were few and far between, and most of the time, something i could microwave. slowly but surely, i've been making my own breakfast. this is HUGE for me. i wish i could convey the feeling i get in the morning now - like i have purpose, drive, and CONTROL over what i'm eating. no shame. no wishing i could take back my last choice of food, because of the inevitable stomachache or wave of nausea over consuming something that is killing me slowly.

VICTORY. that's what it feels like. victory over lack of control.

i've been celebrating by posting pictures of my dinner creations for friends and family on facebook. it makes me feel strong.

i also took a week off, and went with my closest friend to california for a week. there were too many amazing experiences to list. but the ease of living, and that wonderful feeling of the absence of anxiety have inspired me so much. i want to keep that feeling every day of my life.

the best part of this vacation, if you can call it a positive thing, is that i completely forgot my mother's 60th birthday. i mean, wow. i have dreaded every birthday and every mother's day for 6 years now. i have made it through them in the past with alcohol, or waves of guilt that i couldn't shake. but this year? this huge birthday year for my mother? i didn't even remember until my father reminded me days later. miracle. complete and utter miracle.

this strength of character is starting to remind me of who i used to be. perhaps that's why i'm considering a career change, as well as the big move down south... maybe i'm feeling like i don't have to hide away from my life by working all the time. maybe this is the beginning of starting my life... at the tender age of almost-29. it also occurred to me that i am now less than 2 years away from the age when my mother had me... and how far i am from experiencing that same joy. i want a future. i want a happy future. i want to have my own family, my own children...

wow. it feels good to send that out into the void. i feel... joyous. full of hope. full of bravery. (for once.)

Compliments are hard to hear.

2011-09-09T22:31:00.001-04:00

This work thing is throwing me off more than anything. I was given a compliment by someone today that really meant something. I respect the hell out of this person, and she said something that almost made me cry.

When did the approval of others come to mean more than my own opinion? It seems that lately, all I ever do is require others to validate me. Make me feel more together. Put me back together. My self confidence and anxiety is bordering on crippling. It makes me needy, constantly seeking attention from others just to feel ok... What an annoyance I feel like sometimes. Like I'm abusing my friendships. Like I'm tooting my own horn all the time, just to get someone to say "awesome job," or "you're the best."

I don't know when it really started. But I do now that without this validation - this current need for positive affirmation - I spiral uncontrollably into a litany of self-hatred and loathing. Anxiety. Failure. And then I self-destruct.

So when this woman said this amazing compliment - unprovoked, unhinted for - it caught me completely off guard, and completely uncomfortable. Embarrassed even. Like I wanted to shout back, "no, please don't say that. It's not true." But I want it to be true.

Am I alone in this?

I wish that I hadn't been programmed so early to be a ridiculous overachiever. It would have helped, I think.

Oh c'mon...!

2011-09-07T23:42:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to figure out what happened. I was feeling secure. I was feeling ready to tackle the world. And then some stuff came up this week. My ex came to town. My computer broke. And my company restructured, resulting in my "demotion". What the eff?

Let's start with my ex. I've loved him since I was 12. Always have. Always will. I ran away to an all-girls college just to make sure no one broke my heart the way he did. He moved away after college, but he comes home to his mom every year. In a sloppy drunken mess of a night this weekend, I told his mom that I still love her son. Her answer broke my heart. "Don't you think I tried??", she said. I hugged her. It's hopeless. But I drank all that Jameson just to deal with the evening. Healthy reaction, right?

My computer broke. I don't have the money for a new one. Thank god I have an iPad. But it's a poor substitute for a real keypad.

And I lost my title at work. Everyone at my "level" got moved to the pool below but didn't lose any pay, and were told we are still next in line for promotions. I am heartbroken. For the first time in forever, I am suddenly doubting the company I have loved for so long. I feel like all the work I did was for nothing. That it meant nothing. That I am irrelevant.

In my heart I know that I am. But it still hurts. And it makes me feel like shit.

All of this makes my decision go move closer to my brother seem that much more important, and the right choice. I need to detach from work. I need to work on my happiness outside of work. I need to put my needs first because obviously, my company doesn't really appreciate me at all. I still seek validation from outside forces, instead of from within.

And I received another letter from mom. She said she's coming to my front door. Best part? She signed it, "regards, 'mother'"! Hahahah. At least I can laugh at that now.

Oy. I need a vacation.

can't sleep

2011-08-25T04:12:00.001-04:00

and couldn't tell you why. i'm all anxious over absolutely nothing and excited about everything. it's as if letting my wishes and dreams out into the void has suddenly made me... impatient. i don't want to wait a year to move. i wish i wasn't a slave to my job. i'd leave next week.

quiet happiness.

2011-08-16T08:39:00.003-04:00

i'm here. somewhere. this summer has been a quiet happy place, and i don't want it to end. normally i can't wait for fall - the leaves, the weather, the holidays... but i have found so much strength over the past two months, i'm almost afraid that the end of the season would mean the end of this regrowth.

i received another letter from mom this week. it was forgotten almost as soon as it was read, and thrown out like yesterday's news. cannot tell you how much it means to me that i can move past her words that much more quickly than i used to.

i went to visit my brother and sister-in-law the other weekend down south. i decided while i was there that what i really want in this life now is to live closer to them. my entire energy for the next year is going to focus on getting myself moved to atlanta. i feel like this is the time - this is the moment for change. planned change, not just change that happens, or hits me by surprise. i feel like i am shouting out to the world what i actually want, as opposed to what i think i should want. does that make sense? i don't want to live here just to keep my father company, and wait for my grandmother to pass. i want to live, live, live, my own life. and i know in my heart that i don't want to live far away from my brother for any more time than necessary.

its hard to believe i could smile this much.

helluva week.

2011-07-30T02:34:00.002-04:00

i'm sorry it's been a while. i am trying to write more often, because my life usually seems to need some perspective.

but writing this week would have been almost inadvisable. it was filled with so much tragedy and sadness. my friend's brother went missing last weekend while surfing. it took 5 days to find his body 20 miles away. the whole thing was so unbelievably awful. he was the nicest person. only married a few years. genuinely wonderful 30-something with a full life to live. i spent the entire week just refreshing information pages on the search - desperately wanting to see a headline like "miracle! found!" but in my heart, i knew that surfing accidents like that rarely turn out well.

the whole thing just affected me more than it probably should have. and after a week of reflecting, i think i know why.

all i can think about is MY brother. what i would have done if it had been my brother that went missing. if he had died. i swear to gd, all i want to do right at this moment is hug him. i cannot even begin to fathom how i would react to losing him, like my friend lost her brother this week. i think i would die inside. i think i would be unable to recover from the loss.

in my insomnia, i chose to read the past 5 years' worth of journal entries i had on another blog. probably also another bad idea. but the journals made some things very evident. and given how severe i think this week has been on my psyche, i need to record some of my clarity moments:

- that i have gone through some awful moments with my mother.

- that i still don't remember things that i wrote about. i black things out from my memory unconsciously.

- that my brother is still the most important relationship i have.

- that i am a survivor.

- that i am a fighter.

- that as bad as my life seems now, it really was worse 5 years ago.

- that i don't give myself enough credit, or enough of a break.

i want to give myself permission to feel ok. to accept that this quiet working life is still worth something. that it's ok to want something other than to work. that it's ok that i don't have my mother in my life. honestly. i'm better because of it.

i want to forgive myself for all the shit i put myself through. all the doubt. the self-flagellation. the constant self-negativity.

i just want to keep moving on, moving forward... and stop looking back to wonder what mistakes i've made. even in their darkest moments, they were never mistakes. because here i am.

come again?

2011-07-12T00:06:00.003-04:00

received a letter from mom today. its written clearly. to the point. almost lucid. she is not coming to visit me, because her therapist has advised her not to. she understands that i have not "invited her" back into my life.

see, it's this kind of nonsense that makes me so angry all the time. i wish she would just stay in crazyland so that i know how to react. but this kind of letter makes me feel nothing but shit. guilty. horrible.

but oh so relieved.

this is... me??

2011-07-07T02:56:00.004-04:00

so is this the happy place? the place mentally where i feel ready to take on the world and my own demons? there has been such a fundamental change in me over the past few months. the anxiety i was facing the other week has mellowed, and i've been feeling... dare i say it... content. i went to the beach on monday and went in the water for the first time in over 10 years. i have always hated my body. hated people looking at me. it's a language of self-hate that i have expressed here, and that i have spoken to myself since i was in middle school. but something on monday strengthened me to give myself permission to enjoy myself. something inside just said, "fuck everyone - go frolic like a dolphin." it was AMAZING. i was in the water for an hour, dried off laying in the sun, and finished the night with an impromptu bbq at a friend's house. all the self-love, and the enjoyment, gave me the most wonderful feeling of relaxation at work the next day. nothing could bug me.

i mean, who am i??? this isn't me talking, is it? i'm not used to this. but i'd like to be!

for the first time in a long time, i really believe that i am putting together all the little pieces of myself that were smashed to bits when my mother fell apart. i really feel like i could conquer anything that comes my way - not only conquer it, but be at peace with the way i handle it.

maybe i'm just growing up? or coming to terms with my mother's illness? either way, i truly believe that my healing is continuing.

self-flagellation never fails.

2011-06-29T18:58:00.003-04:00

so remember i was having a "crazy" week on account of my mother's threat to show up at my door? well, as usual, i wore my heart on my sleeve at work, and my boss brought it up today.

"you're really doing great - i'm so happy you're here - but i get worried about you."

i must've looked shocked. i thought i'd been so good at hiding myself. i thought i was keeping my game face on. i should've known better. i always wear my fucking heart on my sleeve. i called my best friend for clarification - basically to ask, "do you get worried about me too?" and she gave me several points for thought, which i am going to just list here in a random order for reflection later on:

1. i need to detach from work. seriously. let go of it once i leave, and stop worrying about what i didn't get done after i'm out the door.

2. i need to monitor what i say about my private life to people who may not understand.

3. she thinks that i'm so used to being the one looked to for decisions, for the fix, for the solution to the problem, that i put myself in the role of complete responsibility in every situation. that i need to recognize that i have someone above me who is just as capable, and just as willing, to make the decisions.

4. that i shouldn't change who i am, or the emotions i show. it's why i am who i am.

5. that i am unrelentingly hard on myself. cannot forgive myself. cannot move on.

that last point seems incredibly poignant. i will reflect on this later. for now, i'm taking point #1, detaching, drinking a beer, and cleaning the bathroom. so i can take "better care of myself." (what the eff does that mean, and how do i do that??) i am seriously my own worst enemy sometimes.

good morning

2011-06-22T11:07:00.002-04:00

i slept for ten hours and had a huge pot of coffee this morning. somehow, this makes me feel ready to tackle the world - especially my craziness from this weekend. i am stronger than this!

oddly disappointed.

2011-06-21T23:34:00.002-04:00

my mother didn't show up. there was no hysterical episode outside of my building. the police weren't called. the desperate wish that somehow we would wind up in a hospital didn't come true.

my anxiety over the past few days has been unbearable. i haven't slept well in three days, and i dread coming home. i was a nutcase at work, and felt like i was worrying everyone. i tried to explain what this feels like. the intense fear, anger, worry... disappointment.

never thought i'd feel disappointed. the rush of relief should be what i'm feeling. i should be happy there wasn't any kind of incident. but all i feel is incomplete - like the sentence has been ended with an ellipsis. still all this uncertainty, this fear, this frustration about not knowing what exactly is going on with her. i went back on my promise to myself just to check her blog. she hasn't posted in over 2 weeks.

and the worry begins again. i wish i could turn it off like a faucet. ignore it so it went away, and haunted someone else. but this nonsensical, nonexistent closure doesn't exist, and i'm finding myself feeling like a giant "pending" folder.

i hope i'm more together tomorrow. i'm definitely more basket-case than not tonight.

this time is different.

2011-06-13T22:47:00.002-04:00

i had a great weekend. i saw my family for a birthday celebration on saturday. i spent sunday at home, shopping, cleaning, watching movies... and today at the beach, getting toasty red and enjoying the weather. felt like a beach goddess from the 1940's in my giant straw hat and italian sunglasses. finished with watching my goddaughter in her final softball game of the year (she hit the ball, but was tagged out at first base.) came home feeling rested, ready for work, and happy.

and like clockwork, there was a letter in my mailbox from my mother just in time to fuck it up.

there's a line in bridget jones' diary that goes something like this: "it's generally known that as soon as one area of your life starts to go really well, another goes spectacularly to pieces." that's how i feel, right at this moment. i can spend two months really trying to get back into myself, and happy, and all it takes is my mother forcing herself back into the conversation to send me into a hysterical tizzy.

the letter basically says she is going to be arriving at my doorstep sometime this weekend. uninvited. very very uninvited. my mind went black, fear, fury, anger... i started coming up with reasons to be out of the house for two days ("work! you're working! and then it's father's day!" i started seeing visions of her in front of my house and felt the abject fear in my stomach of having to deal with her. i went through every single emotion in the book, but the one that kept repeating in my head was "panic, panic, panic." i called my father. no answer. so i sent my wayward brother a text. he called right back.

my brother and i have been on a weird path lately. i was mad at him for the past few months because he never calls me. he never calls anyone. if you want to know how he is, you have to make the effort, or see if he's updated on facebook. i've given him the benefit of the doubt, because after all, he's a newlywed and under a whole bunch of stress job hunting. but as a result of my embargo, i just wound up hurting myself because i missed him so much. but the conversation we had tonight was very adult. and very real. and within 10 minutes, he had not only calmed me down, but reasoned me right back into my happy place.

i will not fear that which hasn't happened yet. i will not write scenarios. i will not get hysterical over something that i have no control over right now. and i'll give the police a visit tomorrow to see if there's anything i can do if she shows up. my brother doesn't think she actually will show. i know in my heart otherwise. but at least i have the warning ahead of time, and the time to plan my response. when i explained to my brother that she just affects me so much that she alone has the power to send me right back into a depression, he offered the following advice:

"things will only affect you as much as you let them."

i don't know when it happened. but i think my brother has suddenly become much older and wiser than me, even if i have more years on him. i am so very, very lucky. and i love him more than i can ever put into words.

some good news

2011-06-06T13:45:00.003-04:00

went to the doctor, and what i thought was true is true: the shoulder really has done a lot of healing. no surgery! so i brought home some flowers for myself, and the cats made themselves available for a photo op. it made me smile. enjoy!

summer always brings the sunshine :)

2011-06-05T02:12:00.003-04:00

i'm sorry i've been quiet lately. i've been trying to figure out why i haven't felt the need to come blog about all the feelings that go into my every day life. there's really only two. first, i'm feeling pretty good. and two, i'm trying to avoid getting myself all upset.

the silence from my mother lately has been happily deafening. true to my word in my last post, i have NOT gone to read her blog at all. the simple truth is that i just don't want to know. i don't want to know if she's depressed, or planning on coming down to harass me in person, or if she's in danger. i want to put my trust in everything spiritual to guide her and take care of her without my intervention or interference. i know, in my heart, that she is a capable survivor, and that she will endure anything that comes her with the clever manipulation and resourcefulness she's always had.

in the meantime, my life feels suddenly full of words like "possible", "happy", "content"... my job has become heaven once again. i have an amazing boss and a store that makes me confident in myself, and excited to wake up in the morning. and at the same time, both him and the store staff are intent on keeping my time away from work sacred. no phone calls. no text messages. i don't dread my phone ringing on my weekend anymore. how did i get this lucky? i've been spending my weekends with friends, sightseeing, visiting family, or just spending time with myself. my shoulder seems to be healing.

maybe my heart is healing too. maybe that's what's going on.

in other news, i've met someone i actually feel something for. it's completely in my head, and i'm pretty sure that nothing will ever happen with this guy, but i just have to say that i've missed thinking about someone. there hasn't been a "someone" in a long, long time. the timing is all screwy for the two of us, and i know i'm still a bit of a mess inside.

but still. i like that word. "possible." possibilities and hopes aplenty.

note to self.

2011-05-11T00:11:00.002-04:00

stop reading your mother's blog!!!! it's not good for you. it hurts. it worries you. it's not helping anything. just stop it. why do you like this feeling of pain and grief? why do you drink from it, like a parched animal? the crocodile below the surface is going to bite your head off and drown you.

enough already. it's not going to bring her back.

5 years and counting.

2011-05-08T20:41:00.003-04:00

this is mother's day #5 without a celebration of my mother. spent it yet again in the company of my grandmother and aunt, who have spent so much of my life trying to fill a gap.

but we existed as a pair at one point, and i'm trying to remember the time that we did have.

my father said goodnight tonight by saying, "happy daughter's day." it was sweet, and i know what he meant. but i think it's ok to say happy mother's day today - because she was my mother at one point, and i am comfortable enough to celebrate that.

five years with her absence, but she's never really gone.

anger and fear.

2011-05-07T00:01:00.003-04:00

my support meeting on wednesday was amazing. i left feeling good, empowered, and even relieved. here was one month where i could report i was doing better. it's lasted a few days until i picked my mail out of the mailbox this afternoon to find:

"my dear daughter:

i am worried at your reluctance to continue our family relationship. so i am planning to drive down to your home sometime this month and see for myself how you are doing and whether you are happy. i hope that you will accommodate your mother by permitting me to sleep on the sofa. my needs are simple and i look forward to seeing someone whom i have missed for sometime. regards, mom."

i want to rage at her. scream. throw a fucking lamp at her head. why can't she just leave me ALONE? i don't understand it. i never will. how much clearer do i need to be? so i write all this anger down, in the hopes that i calm myself enough to sleep tonight without nightmares. and then i start with the fear, the anxiety - is she really going to show up? what the hell am i going to do? should i call the police ahead of time? is there anything they can even do about it? is it enough for an order of protection?

and two days before mother's day. i want to punch her in the face.

well, world? what should i do?

soul healing.

2011-05-02T01:25:00.002-04:00

i have been trying over the past few weeks to heal, emotionally and physically. i wouldn't say i'm there yet. but i know that i am on my way.

i have been looking forward to may 1st like you wouldn't believe. the beginning of the month means my support group meeting is coming up. i was such a mess at the last one, and i think i'm better now. i'm anxious to see them all and tell them how much better i'm coping.

i spent last night and yesterday alone, but not sitting at home on the couch. i took myself out to dinner, and then spent today wandering around a cute little town up north i had read about. spent the afternoon sitting on the porch of a french bistro, sipping vino verde and inhaling a bowl of mussels with fries on the side. it was beautiful. but still so alone. i don't know what it is that keeps me from calling my friends. sometimes i need the space. but i know today would have been more fun with someone along for the ride.

started to wonder if this is what my mother does all the time too, all alone upstate.

is this really it?

2011-04-13T23:41:00.002-04:00

i know, it's dangerous to spy on my mother through her blog. (that's what i'm really doing.) she wrote something yesterday that summed up the harshness of my decision to cut her out of my life. "ah, but i have no loved ones left."

the child in me screamed "yes you do! i'm right here!" in my head immediately after reading this.

the rational adult in me calmly responded "you do, but they cannot be close to you."

all of this brings me back to how i feel at the moment. do i love my mother? this is the question i have felt guilty to even examine. yes, of course i love my mother. yes, it kills me almost every day to know that she is aging, alone, far away, and poor. it kills me to think that she spends her holidays with strangers and the comfort of church groups that are probably just putting up with her out of politeness. it hurts to know that she is having as much a hard time of this as i am. and the guilt - the incredible guilt that i walk around with on my shoulders. where is my compassion? where is my soul?

but this person, far away, aging, alone, and poor, is not the mother i remember from my (happier) childhood. she is the person that has the ability to turn me into jelly. make me hate myself. give me heart palpitations when she has my phone number. harass and stalk strangers. harass and stalk beloved family members. harass and stalk me where i work. this person has no internal point of reference for "crossing the line." she reduces me into a pile of ash. she paralyzes me with fear, anger, and yes, even hatred. even shame.

when i step out of myself - out of my little life, and float above - the weirdness of the relationship between me and my mother seems fictional. who could cut their mother off? why am i doing this? am i just punishing her? i don't think i can rationalize it to anyone, really. it's hard enough sometimes, like tonight, to rationalize it even to myself. what would happen if i contacted her? no, no i can't. i know the implications and the consequences. because as hard as THIS is, having her in my life is even harder.

don't i deserve happiness? don't i deserve a life lived for myself, and not for providing emotional support to a mentally ill woman that refuses to take the medications that could help her? i think i do. i think i'm worth it. damn it to hell, but yes, here i am screaming that i am being selfish. i am trying ever so hard to put myself first - before her, before my family, before my career. this effort goes against everything i've ever known. my entire life has been to care for my brother, my father, and their emotional well-being.

but putting myself first is still proving tricky. the moment i start to succeed, i knock myself down, and the self-hatred begins all over again.

and then i come here, and post all of this, and somehow feel well enough to fall asleep without crying over my mother's lamentation that she has been cut off "like an amputation - a diseased member that has to be cut off to save the body." in her blog, she was describing me and my brother as the diseased part. but i know it's both of us on each side - it's a toxic relationship that won't help either of us heal in the end.

second or third chances.

2011-04-11T22:27:00.002-04:00

by some miracle, my shoulder is healing. it's not perfect, or 100%, but better enough to go back to work and stop sitting on my couch like a sorry sack. at my monthly support meeting, i broke down into tears confessing that i've felt more alone in this than anything else. i spent most of march hurt, ignored by friends, and cared for only by a handful of very sweet physical therapists and doctors.

while i was away, something happened at work. pretty major. and as a result, i've been transferred to another branch. i don't want to get into all of it, suffice it to say that telling your friends things about work can come to bite you in the ass. but i'm laughing all the way to the bank, because my new boss is AMAZING.

somehow, by a weird twist of fate, i'm being given another chance to have a normal work life. after all these years of crazy and unfriendly bosses that just added to my stress level, i've been given a gift of a boss.

so, within one month, i have emotionally hit rock bottom, but thrown a lifeline. i'm scared to think that this could be the start of something really big for me. maybe this really will be my year. i'm scared to hope for anything good, and even when the cops showed up at my house last week after receiving yet another letter from my mother, i'm still trying to grasp at the good stuff.

maybe i'm maturing? eh. i'm at least climbing out of the hole.

new challenge, new truths.

2011-03-28T20:50:00.003-04:00

i'm injured. and not the kind where you can rest it with an ice pack for a few days, and bounce back. the kind where i've had an MRI and waiting to find out if i need surgery or not. in the 2 weeks that i've been dealing with this, i've had to go to doctor's visits, prescription runs, and take care of myself while hopped up on serious painkillers and muscle relaxants.

and while i'm 28, and should be able to handle all these things, i find myself absolutely yearning for someone else to take care of me. the kind of hysteria that when i left the MRI, the first thing i absolutely had to do was call my father and cry.

i hate how i have to always be strong for myself. i know that there are kids in the world that have parents that they can fall back on, and who would have been in the waiting room for them. or that there are adults like me who have a significant other to fill that void. but it hit me rather painfully that i don't have either of those things.

is it selfish to say that i'm sick of being this strong adult? all i wanted to was to climb onto my couch and have someone else make me dinner, and clean up, and wait in the waiting room at the doctor's office so everything seems less scary.

i'm scared, and i have no hands to hold, and i hate it. i almost resent it.

would i know her anymore?

2011-03-16T00:02:00.002-04:00

this month has been incredibly positive. i am feeling great, except for a rotator cuff injury (oy!) but mentally, i'm stronger than i've been in a while.

maybe that was why i read her blog tonight. i still believe she has no idea that i know the address of it. some of the things she writes are so... out there. deep into her alternate realities and paranoid speeches. things about me, my brother, my family... things that i really don't want to read.

but in between all the paranoia and the craziness, she writes about her everyday life. taking buses to university libraries. visiting church groups. playing chess with strangers in the park.

and it makes me wonder if i know her at all. if i ever really knew her. who is "she"? it's been so long since i've had a relationship with her that i've begun to think of her as a stranger in my life. a personality rather than a person. i still have no answer to the question, do i love her? i can't say for sure that i do - because the mother i love is someone who no longer exists. how can you love a stranger that has no part in your life, other than causing pain and grief?

it goes both ways. i am sure that i am hardly the daughter she remembers. but given her writing, she still believes her daughter was murdered and covered up by her family. sigh.

families with mental illness are messy, complicated, and damaging. how do we ever recover? can we ever recover? and will i ever, ever, have some kind of closure or acceptance?

getting better, but...

2011-03-06T15:17:00.002-05:00

it occurs to me often that i might be bipolar too.

after reading so many years' entries of the same cycles - grief-stricken despair, self-isolation and depression to optimism and joy - that maybe i am exactly like my mother after all. there is rationality in everything i do, but when i go through periods like i have in the past few months, when all i want to do is stay in bed and hide, i wonder if there isn't something bigger going on.

because these past few weeks have been so darn... wonderful.

or is it just that my self-esteem causes me to knock myself down and make up excuses any time i begin to feel like a real person again? and that my periods of depression and sadness are justified by coming to terms with being motherless and powerless to help her?

there is a happiness in my life right now that i don't want to lose, and knowing myself as well as i do, i will either talk myself out of this or figure out a way to fuck it up. better yet, my mother will fuck it up with a well-timed letter, police visit, or other annoyance to bring me down again.

it's never-ending.

i love spring.

2011-03-02T23:06:00.003-05:00

so... continuing the progress from last month. i've decided that the month of march is ME month! i don't know why march, but i'll chalk it up to the fact that its because there are no holidays besides st patty's day.

the question: can i, in only one month, reclaim some of the things that define me OTHER THAN my mother and my job?

that's the question i want to work on.

my mother sent me a letter today. it was her usual "where is your brother? i'm going to file a missing person's report. i heard that you were living elsewhere and what you were conversing with [insert fictious person here]." my progress continues - i ripped it up, i'm recording it here, and i'm moving on. i don't have the time or the energy to get upset by it anymore. the simple fact remains that she will never change, and i can't help her. i can't continue to live my life on "pause" and forget all the things that make me special in order to hide myself away in a job that takes away all dealings with my mother. i want to reclaim myself.

first step - rejoin an orchestra. i used to be a fantastic violin player. and i think with a little brush up and some practie, i could start there.

i love spring - everything feels like rebirth and renewal.

feeling so damn good!

2011-02-24T23:57:00.004-05:00

ok. i've been whining for months now. and i don't know how it happened, but i had a little epiphany over the weekend, which i'll share with you now:

i am getting upset by my new boss because she is changing things and doesn't like how my previous boss ran things. she chooses to communicate by blunt honesty and negative body language. what got me so upset was how she chose to communicate those feelings to me.

everything in my life has been built by myself to be in control - this is how i survived my mother. i know this now. i needed everything to be in control, planned, not too risky... have the exit plan before you go. this new boss is in control now, and the change from the previous boss, who i had finally learned to read, threw me for a loop.

so what if she wants to change everything? who cares if she thinks i've been doing a lousy job? what's important is what i know: i know i do my job well. i know that i am competent and capable. she's only been working with me for one week - so how in the world can i expect her to know that yet? why in the world am i letting this get me into a depressive funk? it's not worth it. it's just a stupid job! !!

which leads me to the next subject. my brother spent 40 minutes yelling at me on the phone last week to tell me i need to get a life. and he said it just like that. he said i'd go crazy if i kept stressing about work and had nothing else to do, even to the point of obssessing about work on my weekends (which i totally do.) why am i wired to be married to my job?

the more i think on this question, the more it goes back to survival. i survived my mother's latest break by jumping whole-heartedly into my job. working there keeps me from worrying about her. all those customers and coworkers keep my brain utterly free of thinking about my mother. my work friends became my pseudo friends, and before i knew it, the past 5 years have been nothing but work, work, work, succeed, get a promotion, work. as i've said often, this is no way to live a life.

so i'm taking my brother's advice. i'm getting a life. i'm moving on from this crap that is just in my head, and getting out of my own head. i'm going to find an orchestra to join. i'm going to take a continuing ed class. i'm going back to weight watchers and finally lose the weight that i have put on while feeling guilty/unhappy/stressed/emotional. i'm going to lose the weight, but gain myself.

i'm feeling so damn good and optimistic.

i'm not even going to think about the last will and testament that my mother forwarded to my address. i'm not going to read into it all. i cannot lose myself again. i'm more important right now.

this sucks.

2011-02-18T01:13:00.003-05:00

my new boss is awful. not crazy like the last one, but completely unfriendly and awful. why can't i ever win?

nothing ever quite works out for me, and i'm tired of it. i know that no one has it perfect but really? not one thing can go right for me?

i'm a sad little face tonight.

admitting it.

2011-02-13T20:32:00.002-05:00

i'm acknowledging all the feelings i'm having right now about my boss 's last day.

i am scared.

i am nervous.

but perhaps most surprisingly, i am sad. she drives me crazy, but lately, working with her has been kinda fun.

for better or for worse, this woman has been my other half professionally for the past year and a half, and that relationship has now ended. i have to get used to someone else now. someone else's preferences, habits, wording...

i really dislike change. it makes me feel out of control in the situation, and if there's one thing i learned as a child, it was to be in control. meh.

change is hard.

2011-02-10T01:05:00.002-05:00

i'm rereading "my parent's keeper" by brown. a few things have happened in the past 24 hours to make me feel that this is a necessity.

1. i'm becoming more and more active in NAMI. they sent out a story on a high school in waukena, wisconsin that did a dance routine that mocked the mentally ill. i was so triggered by memories of myself in high school, coming to terms with my mother's hospitalization, that i sent an email to the principal of the school. i was pretty honest in my anger at the routine.

let me reiterate here that it is VERY unlike me to confront people about this kind of thing. it's easier to do through email, where life is inpersonal, and you can yell whatever you want without having to be there for the recipient's reaction. to my utter shock, the guy asked me for a phone number to have a conversation today. he even called me. the conversation was a good one, but it left me feeling even more confused by my own reaction to it than the actual dance routine situation. that school is a thousand miles away from me - it has no effect on my life. but i know there are students there who might be just as traumatized as i was, or who may be mentally ill themselves, and might need someone to advocate for them.

is this a hint as to something i feel passionate about? more passion than i do about my job? i find myself fantasizing about starting a national organization for ACMIs like myself, and taking our message to young students across the country who might be as affected as i was at their age.

2. i have two days left working with my boss. if you go back to some of my older posts, you know that she is someone with whom i feel a very weird connection. i hate working for her. she reminds me of my mother, and she has turned my working life into an echo of my personal life.

but lately, i'm starting to worry about the new boss. the situation now might suck, but at least i know what to expect and how i need to cope. i'm being thrown into something new, and it's scary as hell. i feel... nervous.

which brings me back to brown's amazing book. the excerpt i want to think about:

"in order to break through this vicious cycle of anxiety and inhibition, you need to see through your adult ways of clocking your insecurity and look into the mind and feelings of that child within you. if you can begin to do this, you'll be able to soothe yourself by seeing that there isn't nearly as much at stake in this situation as that child believes. that hungry, unloved child in you is seeking all the care you never got - and expecting all the rejection and abuse you did receive. approaching any new, unknown person in your world revives that craving and that specter once again."

continuing the isolation (?)

2011-02-06T23:47:00.008-05:00

i was reading some of the old comments left on some of my entries. there's one that is just playing with my mind at the moment, and i have to let out everything it stirred up just now.

"Our souls came in stronger than most, we children of these parents. We are a silent type of warrior; our anger is often misplaced, our loyalty is often misplaced and our love is often left unfulfilled."

i was supposed to go home to my friends today to watch the superbowl. somehow, i wound up at work instead. i spent the entire day feeling bad for myself that there would be no one to watch the game with anyway. and true to form, i left at 6 pm, just for kickoff, to sit and watch the game with the cats. i suppose i could have gone all the way to my hometown as planned - drive the hour and see who was around and where. but i didn't really want to bother.

i have to make some friends around here, or this is never gonna stop.

i went to visit my brother and his wife last weekend, and i'd be lying if i didn't admit that i've been thinking of just jumping ship entirely and moving down there near them. given that the rent there is half what is here, i could probably pay my way just finding some odd job and starting all over again. but i am sooo c l o s e to promotion again. is money all that will make me happy? will moving somewhere else make me any more happy than i am here?

one thing is for sure - all of the future plans i had for myself seem to matter less and less lately. when i switched careers four years ago, i convinced myself that this company was the only one i wanted to work for. that i wanted to retire from it. that i wouldn't be satisfied until i was first in command, and entitled to all those yearly bonuses. lately, however, i'm starting to wonder if i really want to do this even in ten years. my job takes me away from everything good in life, like normal weekends, normal hours, family time, regular holidays off... and i've dealt with it so well, i believe, because my job took my mind away from the personal junk going on in my head. i could lose myself in 10,000 customers a week and 300 employees to manage and being really, really good at it. but the cost is becoming clear. my lifestyle is unhealthy. my heart is empty. i'm living an hour away from my family and friends simply for the privilege of being #2.

wouldn't it be nice to just say "fuck it" and leave? i've started from scratch before. i could do it again. and this time, my brother would be there to save ME.

"our loyalty is often misplaced" - has my loyalty been to job and company, before family and self? all i ever wanted was some normalcy and a retirement package. is it worth it? is it really "normal"?

running away won't change the hurt. it won't fix me magically. it won't fix my mother. but it sounds so good right now. sigh.

nightmares.

2011-02-05T23:49:00.004-05:00

i've been sick with the flu. it's really not fun. being sick on your own just sucks. no parents to bring home the cough drops. no roommates to ask to get stuff to make soup. you have to suck it up and do it on your own, while feeling like utter crap. i will say that being sick on my own is perhaps the worst feeling i can think of - except for having nightmares.

i'm not sure what the trigger is, but something from my childhood obviously stuck with me - i can't watch scary movies. or movies with grotesque violence. i can't watch anything with depictions of violent crimes, guts being spilled, big sharks eating people, aliens eating people. there is something about them that profoundly freaks me the 'eff out. i can give three examples of me trying to watch them: 1) as a senior in high school, some friends were hanging out and decided to watch "the exorcism" - i ran out of the house in tears. 2) when i saw the matrix for the first time, i had nightmares for three days straight about fields of human babies being taken care of by machines. 3) on a school trip, they played some bad movie where it's a haunted house that used to be a mental institution. a character was given electroshock and i got so upset and freaked out that they had to turn it off to keep me from getting hysterical. i couldn't stop crying. (of course, that response is completely normal, given the fact that i know my mother has had electroshock therapy twice in her life.)

i get physically uncomfortable, nervous, nauseous, anxious... i can't do it. my friends still tease me that if we go out to the movies, it better be a romance or a comedy or i won't go with them.

so why, oh why, when i already had a fever and a headache, did i choose to watch a marathon of "criminal minds" yesterday? there were episodes about rapists, serial murderers, pedophiles, and of course, shizophrenics. it's just a crime drama on tv, with mandy patinkin (who i LOVE), but for some reason, the episodes made me feel just like scary movies do. but i kept watching them. i KNOW myself better than that. and just as i would have predicted, i had nightmares all night about rapists, serial murderers, and children being hurt. i must have woken myself out of them at least 5 times throughout the night, and i am still shaking when i think about them.

i was describing this to someone this morning, complaining that i should have called my father after the first one, damn the time it was... but i couldn't do that, right? it's childish. i know it's a tv show. i know that there isn't a rapist in my house, or that a little boy is being held captive on my floor.

and as i said the words, i realized that this must be what it's like to be my mother. she lives with these kinds of visions in her head all the time. her most common delusion is that children near her are being hurt by a murderer, or that she must save children being abused - frequently, her visions are that her own children were murdered and that the ones currently alive (me and my brother) are actually stand-ins or actors, put there to keep an eye on her or harm her.

if i had been a little kid, i would have told my father or mother about the nightmares, and they'd soothe me, and probably lull me back to sleep. but no one was here to lull me back to sleep. i kept falling back asleep and waking up again from another nightmare.

i'm not saying i'm like my mother. only that last night gave me a new insight into what it must be like to be my mother. i feel a lot better today. i told my friend at work about the dreams, and he laughed at them and gave me a hug, and i spent the rest of the day feeling better. i know i'll sleep a bit tonight.

but my mother doesn't ever get the "hug" and the reprieve. once again, i'm left feeling so sorry for her. and sorrier still that i cannot help her.

yes.

2011-01-14T10:43:00.003-05:00

it's already been a better month. i'm sleeping. i'm going home from work on time. i'm keeping the house clean. i haven't hated myself as much.

ignoring my mother's blog is the right way to go.

the only minor hiccup was 3 police officers coming to the store i manage. my first thought was, "shit. she found me. or she's dead." but all they wanted to know was whether there was a video security system in place for something that happened in the parking lot. giant sigh of relief.

a little more optimism.

2011-01-09T22:40:00.002-05:00

since new year's, i've been sensing another change in myself. what's the saying, that you reinvent yourself every 7 years? it's probably about that time. my tone and words have been a stale record on repeat for about that long. most likely longer.

i want to think of this as the year of me. 2010 was not my year. it really wasn't any kind of year. it was a hollow, shallow, empty sort of life filled with regrets, despair, depression, and self-imposed loneliness.

it has been years now since my break with my mother. i should really try to forgive myself over parts of it. i should make that effort in an attempt at self-rescue. continuing to punish and hide myself as i have been is simply not working, and more importantly, impressively self-destructive. hiding myself away and playing to the back room is only making me feel more alone, more isolated, and more emotionally stunted than i had ever planned.

this entry feels ridiculously honest.

no. what is really holding me back from breaking free of this mental prison i have made for myself? where i hole up and read my mother's blog for absolution, for forgiveness, for any sign of her regret or indication of help? why do i continue to hold on to the hope that she will make herself well? that this will still end happily? that she will miraculously go to a hospital and come back as some small shadow of herself?

because this is comfortable. this fortress of self-hatred is so, so, very comfortable. if i had to actually work on any of these feelings, i might feel myself shift. or something shift. and who would know what feelings i would uncover then? maybe i'd forgive her. maybe i'd forget her. maybe i'd just move on with my life and stop the self-flagellation.

so i'm making this commitment here. to the people who matter. to the nameless faces of other children of the mentally ill who find something about my story familiar:

i will not read my mother's blog for the next month. at all.

i will not read my mother's blog in the hopes of seeing my name.

i will not search google for some tidings of her whereabouts.

i will throw out any letters i receive.

i will block out any emails i receive.

i will live this next month for myself, with myself, and by myself, without her voice in my head or her memory blinding my rationality.

maybe i'm being harsh, but i think it's warranted. i don't want to continue living my life as i have been. i don't want to continue beating myself up. hating myself. yelling at myself for an illness i can't fix, or a person that i can't save.

i'm breaking free this year. for my own self-worth.

happy new year...

2011-01-03T23:14:00.002-05:00

...to all of you out there! i know someone's reading from my page count. i hope you all know that you are not alone out there.

i cannot express how much it means to me that i am not alone. that there are other people in the world who know EXACTLY what it means when you have a paranoid schizo for a mother. and who have some echo of the feelings i'm putting out there.

let this year be a good year for us - a year of healing. a year of self-help. a year of wonderful possibility and new memories. a year of peace.

that's my only resolution. a really, really positive year.

not my year.

2010-12-29T22:53:00.004-05:00

please forgive the lack of posts. the fact is that there has been so much going on that i'm still processing how i feel about it all. it's hard to not self-edit when i'm feeling like this.

then again, maybe it's all the sad music i've been listening to all week.

my job is out of control. i had a huge meeting with my crazy boss's boss on the monday after my birthday. i told him everything. how unhappy i was. that i felt like i was an abused spouse in a relationship. that i wanted to learn from someone who would teach me the right way to do things, not the crazy way. in a nutshell, he told me he wants to fire her, but he needed me to document everything i told him. so i wrote. i wrote and wrote. and sent it. i can't shake the feeling that i have betrayed her. i feel guilty. sick to my stomach. like i'm lying to her every time i talk to her. but it had to be done. i'm the only one who can give her boss the answers he's looking for, and if i don't, i'm protecting her by default. i can't be seen that way professionally.

and now, nothing has happened. i sent this huge letter, put myself through 3 days of not sleeping, because i feel so fucking GUILTY. and he hasn't acknowledged it. hasn't called me. i have no idea what's going to happen. i just want it to HAPPEN already, so i can move on and stop feeling so nauseous.

i also spent the better part of today looking at my brother's wedding albums and listening to the weepies. the result of all this moodiness is that i have now made myself so miserable, and depressed, that i don't want to do anything.

i can't shake the feeling that i'm going to spend my entire life alone. that i'm going to continue eating until i drop dead of a heart attack. that i will always be this unloveable person who can't find enough inner strength to tell her boss what she really thinks of her.

because in the end i'm just a chickenshit. i'm afraid of change. i'm afraid of confrontation. i want it all to just... fix itself. i don't want to disturb the balance. i don't want to provoke. and it all has to do with my mother. this is how i learned to survive her. i learned to calm everyone, search out their moods before speaking, give them what they need emotionally to avoid the blowup...

and i'm still this mess of a girl.

happy birthday, buncy

2010-12-17T00:28:00.004-05:00

it's something my mother would have said when i was a child.

birthdays are such funny things. this is perhaps the first one where i don't really give a damn about what i do. last year i got all worked up because i invited a bunch of folks to come out and no one did. but not this year. i just want my 3 best friends for dinner out somewhere.

i also want to avoid receiving a package from mom. every year since our estrangement, she sends a box of something she has hand-knit. i cleaned a closet out last night, and found a scarf, a shawl, and a hooded sweater in a box that she sent over the years. i guess the progress is that i didn't immediately rebox them. i put the sweater on. it made me feel weird. wrong. like i could put it on, and think of her, and no one would have to know but me. i wouldn't have to admit to it out loud. i wouldn't have to admit that i like the idea that she made it with her own hands, and she held it, and she sent it with love. i wouldn't have to admit that i wanted that in some small way.

but i guess you're always the little girl you used to be, and you never really get over wanting your mommy. even when you're 28, and still unable to make peace with the fact that she's never coming back.

i have only one birthday wish: that this be a better year for me emotionally. because my heart hurts.

emails and a new house

2010-12-08T22:15:00.002-05:00

my mother came up with yet another email address for herself. it's already been blocked. this email was not angry like her last, but rather, the disgustingly sweet, forgiving, peace-offering motherly type. she said she had sent me a package for my birthday.

is it wrong that i'm already trying to figure out how i refuse my signature with ups? i don't need her to have delivery confirmation. i wonder if they "return to sender." whatever is in the box is nothing i want.

i guess i'd be able to understand her if i had my own kids - i'm sure i wouldn't be able to understand the rejection either. but right now, all i want is her complete and total absence from my life, and she is doing everything possible to keep herself in it. short of showing up at my door. that would certainly test my patience at every level. i'd probably just want to hit her.

in other news, my brother is buying a house. he's such an adult. so much more so than i think i will ever be. i wonder where i'll be in 5 years. right now, it hurts to know that he will never return home to ny. that unless i move towards him, that our relationship will continue as it has been for the past few years. i really miss the closeness we had. i miss seeing him all the time. i miss my sister-in-law, who i love just as much. i truly miss being a part of their everyday lives.

do i miss them enough to uproot myself yet again? that is the question.

rumors.

2010-12-06T20:06:00.003-05:00

i spoke to my sister-in-law today, who answered the phone, "what's wrong?" the actual reason i had called was to figure out how i could go for a visit as a surprise for my brother's birthday. but it made me realize how much we all are on pins and needles in this family. ALWAYS vigilant. ALWAYS ready for the next drama, episode, catastrophe. we are poised to support and empathize with whichever family member has been targeted by my mother.

i shrugged it off at the time, but now that i've been home to think about it, it's so sad. we are constantly on edge.

she then asked if i had spoken to my brother lately. when i replied no, she proceeded to tell me that one of the emails that i had blocked from my mother had said she planned on coming to my apartment to see me on my birthday, a mere 2 weeks from now. my initial reaction was laughter. "that's nice," i replied. my sister-in-law laughed back. that would be an interesting attempt on her part. if she actually shows up, i hope i act rationally. i hope i act calmly, and ask her to leave in a calm manner. i really don't think i know how i will react. i can only hope i don't lose my temper and scream back at her.

i have to remember she's ill. and treat her as such.

maybe she could just do me the gigantic favor of not showing up. short of an order of protection for harassment/stalking, there really isn't much i can do.

for christie.

2010-12-04T23:08:00.002-05:00

it's easy to lose perspective, sometimes, when blogging about your own issues. i have faithfully recorded most of the feelings i'll admit to outloud in this blog when it comes to my mother, my fears, my life... my hopes and dreams. but mostly, it's become my space for venting, finding clarity, finding feedback, and letting all the bad and ugly hang out.

but something happened this week that has made me pause in my own nonsense.

my friend christie is 28. she has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. if she is lucky, according to her doctors, she will have another 5 to 10 years of life. christie is an amazing girl. full of life, sarcastic wit, teaches english to inner city kids, and just got married this past july. she is someone who has continually pushed me, and even though we only see each other a few times a year, she has been an important part of my life.

i can't believe this is happening to her.

it puts my own life in perspective. what the hell am i waiting for? i live for work, and not work to live. i wallow at home in misery and sadness because i cannot control my mother's life, and because i can't find the energy to better myself. i'll put it off for another day. do the dishes tomorrow. fall in love next year. put money away for retirement, and dream about the day i get to retire at 55.

but what if there is no next year? what if there is no 55th birthday?

i am probably being dramatic, but i just can't afford to keep living my life the way i have been. something has to change, and it has to change now. there are no guarantees in life, and i've been living like my life is on hold. like i'm waiting for something good to happen. like i'm waiting to magically wake up and find everything different.

but sweetie, this is where we are. you got to make the changes for yourself. and if not now, when??

no, every time i start to feel myself put life on hold again, i'm going to say christie's name. look in the mirror. and realize that i have to live every day as if it were my last. because for christie, it could be. and what a waste that will be.

another letter in the mail.

2010-11-17T01:53:00.002-05:00

every time i receive a letter or a postcard in the mail from her, i want to just throw it away. burn it. rip it up into a million pieces and spare myself the pain and the hurt of seeing her handwriting. depending on what she writes, it's easy for me to tell if it was written on a good day or a bad one. this one that i received was definitely written when she was lucid. two pages of her scribble, begging forgiveness, chastising me for being just as horrible to her, and asking me to visit her 8 hours away.

she writes: " you have acted horribly, but i can forgive because i am not with out blame for denying you so often. that's part of my handicap. i beg you to excuse the wandering speculations of a pent up spirit. we could start on new ground. you could visit."

i can't excuse. i can't forgive. i can't start a relationship with her all over again. the letter arrived the day after the police showed up at my door. further proof that her lucid moments are short and few between. the delusions are still the norm. and even after shutting the door, she is still affecting my ability to live my life. i have been a basket case all week. my job is affected. my spirit is affected. i can't fall asleep, and i don't want to get out of bed. and through all this, a small, still voice from the back of my head telling me it's time to find a therapist before i drown in this (yet) again.

the last time i felt this unhappy, i quit grad school, changed careers, and moved 4 hours away. and i don't want to do that again.

i'm so sorry, but i just can't.

depression and the police.

2010-11-13T09:31:00.003-05:00

i am fighting this depression with every inch of my being, but i can't find the energy. i spent the entire day in bed yesterday, waking up only to watch movies, and then answer the door for the police at 9 pm. the officer was nice, but i was crying. i told him i felt harassed. stalked by my own mother. and he basically said that the police never mind coming, and they have to cover their own ass. again i had to explain to a cop why my mother calls them, what her delusions are, and the waste of time it is for them. i asked if there was any way to stop them from coming, since it upsets me so much. he said no. they have to come.

in a ridiculous attempt at distracting myself, i am now going to drive 3 hours to massachusetts. i'm telling myself its to drop off my violin at my violin man, but i'm really going just to get out of the house.

i am so very sad lately.

tonight's group meeting

2010-11-03T23:30:00.002-04:00

The support group that I joined doubled in size tonight. Usually there are only 3 of us. Tonight there were 6. In the 11 months that i've been attending, this was the first time any one new had come along. The 3 individuals that came all shared their story - some with tears, some with stoicism. I became completely unraveled. There was so much to relate to - and even some discoveries for my own benefit - that I feel unable to sleep. There is so much I want to rethink. Mull over. Investigate.

I was so upset I ran to the nearest Target and bought comfort items (without realizing I was doing it.) A fleece bathrobe, new sheets, PJ bottoms, diet pepsi, a new trash can for the kitchen to make me feel like I had cleaned something...

I was so incredibly triggered. The topic was disagreements, and our comfort with them. I wound up talking about the disagreements I have with myself almost daily. Voicing that I am constantly disagreeing with myself because while I have cut my mother off, and drawn the proverbial line in the sand, I still crave information about her, and her state of being. I was reliving every fear and frustration of not being able to heal her - save her - get her to the hospital. The hopelessness and regret and guilt. The wish my brother would seek some kind of help instead of acting as if he were impervious. Instead of cutting out his own family in favor of his wife's.

One of the newcomers expressed fears about the future - what would happen when he married, when he moved out of the house. I swear all I wanted to do was wrap him in my arms, tell him it was OK if he wanted to leave his ill mother, that he was allowed to think about his own needs, that he was going to have to figure out his own boundaries, and that he would have a life without the burden of caring for his mother. But I can't do that. I can't even make those claims to myself, let alone someone else. But always that need and desire to help and soothe everyone but myself. It never goes away. I will continue to put everyone else in front of myself.

I thought I had made progress over the past year. But maybe I haven't. Why else would I have lost it the way that I did? Why do I still feel like this? Like the weight on my shoulders will not let go, and that I just want to eat, eat, eat until I throw up?

I guess in truth I wanted him to put his arms around me, and tell me everything is going to be ok. I need that from someone else. I need a hug. I need a shoulder to cry on.

promises, promises.

2010-10-27T01:39:00.004-04:00

tonight was actually a good break from all the living within my own head. i went to my aunt and uncle's house for dinner. (my mom's brother and his wife.) they are the only people on my mother's side that i truly feel comfortable with. i've written in previous posts about how much they have stood by me through the years - how they've never made me feel like "****'s daughter", but rather, an independent person not defined by her mother's craziness. it's amazing how that insecurity never really leaves me. my love for my uncle and aunt is very, very deep, and i'm lucky to have such an open, wonderful relationship with them. ever since my grandfather passed away, they really are the only people tying me to my mother's side. i have serious issues with my mom's sister (also in previous posts), and the rest of my mom's cousins absolutely keep their distance because of my mother. i am sure of it.

anywho... i digress.

the night was nice. we had dinner. we watched glee with my 14-year-old cousin, who pronounced it a "geek" show. i wholeheartedly agreed, but i love it anyway. we talked. we laughed. i left feeling so light. loved. full of love. fiercely proud of my family, and realizing, truly realizing for the first time in a long time that i avoid my family. i completely, utterly, hide within my job. i don't see them more often because of my "job".

the excuses need to stop. i'm living my life for all the wrong reasons. that's what it feels like.

i was listening to some extremely moody shawn colvin music on the ride home, and asked myself: "what would make you a happier person right now? what's important to get you out of this depression?" because that's what i've been doing all month. i know it. i spent last saturday just being sad. left the house because i felt like crying, and went walking in the woods. but instead, walked around the woods feeling like crying. went to work on sunday, but spent the day on the verge of tears. no explanation. no reason that i can rationally explain. i was just... sad. i didn't do the dishes. i didn't clean the house. i barely slept this week. i've just spent the past two hours online reading posts on NAMI and NNAAMI. i have to be at work 5 hours from now, which means i won't sleep AGAIN.

so i'm sad. why?

1. i feel unproductive.

2. i feel fat.

3. i feel unloveable.

4. i hate working for my boss.

i've made this list before. i've promised myself before that i would work on all of this. but i can't COMMIT to it. what's the answer? how do i fix it?

1. get help. find a counselor.

2. make a list, and break it down into manageable pieces.

3. stop tolerating my boss's abuse.

4. get out and do stuff. get active. go for a walk every day.

ENOUGH, girl. ENOUGH. you're punishing yourself.

eureka!

2010-10-13T01:05:00.003-04:00

i am coming to slowly realize this important thing:

i think my boss reminds me slightly of my mother. that i am constantly on guard for her feelings and moods, because i am scared of an implosion. that everything i say to her is meant to either calm or keep calm. that our work relationship affects my personal life. and that i am always anxious, on a consistent daily basis, fearing the impending emotional roller coaster of the day.

after a year of wondering what it is that makes me "suck" at my job, i think this is it. i don't suck. i just work for someone who paralyzes me.

and now, how i go about fixing or improving this? other than asking for a transfer?

the book that is going to change my life

2010-10-11T10:50:00.002-04:00

how is it possible i haven't read this one yet? "my parent's keeper: adult children of the emotionally disturbed" by eva marian brown. i read page after page, highlighting sentences whenever i feel my heart scream out, "YES! THIS IS YOU!!" and there are so many to highlight. there are some issues that don't immediately apply to me, but oh my goodness.

this is the same kind of revelation i had when i first joined my "adult children of the MI" support group, which is the one and only thing i do for "myself" every month. this is life. changing. i think to digest this properly, i'm going to have to start with a thought from the book and write out my emotional responses. i feel like this is the right course.

the first one i'm mulling over is:

"over the years, as you repeatedly experience your parent's inadequacy in responding to your feelings, and as you witness their own internal chaos, you build a life around being in control. being in control becomes the most important thing in your life; your survival depends upon it."

next entry.

identity theft

2010-10-05T02:17:00.003-04:00

she tried to claim money that legally belongs to me using my address with her name. instead of sending in the claim, she sent it to me with a letter declaring me as "ms. millipede of more than one persona." whatever the f that means.

in the meantime, i am extraordinarily concerned that she used MY address with her name to attempt to collect an old paycheck from a former employer. an order of protection wouldn't work with this, would it? it's not harassment. and she didn't actually steal the money, so it's not theft.

but it's definitely disturbing. and extremely, extremely nervy.

regret.

2010-09-21T21:57:00.002-04:00

i will admit that the anger has dissipated. after getting mom's email, i went through my "mom" folder in my email, and found some incredibly mean emails i had sent right after her breakdown. i was cruel. hurtful. hateful, even. i said things that i should not have, but i know the place they were coming from.

three years ago, she was harassing me at work. she was sending me incredibly upsetting and cryptic emails. she was interfering with my brother's life. she was leaving me to pick myself up yet again. she was jailed. she was released. i couldn't understand why she would stop the medication. i couldn't understand WHY she was choosing to be sick over being my parent. i tried to tell her so many times about the consequences of her choices. i wrote her an email that flat-out said that she would not be welcome in my life, or that of my future children, if she chose to not take medication. and rationally, i can't comprehend giving up that joy. but i am not mentally ill - she is. i have no idea what kind of thought process she has - even though i can guess at the meanings behind the bizarre letters.

i guess what i'm saying is that i feel bad about the emails i sent her all those years ago, and their tone. but i know why i sent them - i was trying to scare her "straight". i was trying to get her back on track. i was trying to protect my brother. and it didn't work. none of it worked.

what i'm saying is that i'm not as angry anymore. but i'm still determined. mostly, i just feel bad for her. i pity her.

whatever that means for now.

and one got through.

2010-09-21T21:22:00.002-04:00

even after i block her email address, she still finds a way to get past the barricade. this is what i received today, hours into one of the worst days at work i've had in a while. the email is addressed to my father, with myself and my brother cc'ed.

possibly enough to start the novel finally? sigh.

"I apologize for emails in August which were the

result of a medication change backfire and
an attempted robbing/mugging in the park on August 28th which
caused a BP fear spike manic cycle.

The following coincidence ( I assume it is providence)has caused me
to consider filing an order of protection (do not bother) petition
here in Rochester:

1. A sister perhaps of your mother (possibly originally from
Queens County) has moved in here at Plymouth G. She calls herself
Dorothy and lives up on the 7th floor. She has some friends who
moved in too who are originally from Point Lookout apparently.
These are "Edward and Mary" There is also a daughter with a car
in her apparent 50s who lives here
2. There is some indication that as teens, my kids
visited her up here and became attached to her;
3. Also, that the first pair live up here and see her
4. There is illegal surveillance of my broadband laptop (Time Warner Cable)not wireless
5. There have been several entries into my apartment in the past year
with vandalism which was instigated
6. I believe my original son is gone and that concealed; there is
some indication he is living in Queens County NY --that's my opinion and
I have a newspaper photo taken by Ruth as proof
7.On 8/28th I was mugged and robbed at a park bench here--by a tenant's relative here probably

As such, I feel I am being targeted as a crime victim for the future
I feel strongly that my parental role has been surplanted by your mom
and she is mentally ill too
there is some reason to believe she commits criminal acts to defend herself
when threatened including libel, coercion and sabotaging my healthy career through string pulling;
in fact, my kids have been stolen de facto and brainwashed or coerced to stay away from me
(they lose eternity or some such insanity)
I feel I need a stronger protection in light of a resume of the
kinds of things which forced me to leave Nassau and take a new legal name
in fact, it is obviously coincidental that your mother is up here in my building,
neighborhood and city--and her friends back home also moved up here.

I am being very up front with you.
I am no longer a well girl.
I am retired and disabled--and chose my present course to avoid stressors or being a victim.
I very much deserve my children and my mother role is intrinsic to my psychological health and survival.

I will press a petition soon. I mean no harm or inconvenience.
I do not intend to move again for the 14th time.
The ball is in your court.

My opinion is that you should move mom into assisted living where she can be monitored by
yourself and
take over her house as her rightful power of attorney.
You should return my children to their non-brainwashed state.
You should retrieve my son and salvage him.
You should restore some form of communication between mom and kids
as beneficial--as a compassionate act as a former friend and lover of mine.

That is all until I file that petition. And on my part, I am in better shape
for September and will resist further BP emails or phone calls, which no doubt--is quite hard.

Regards,"

another email address to block. another string of paranoid hate-filled sentences that i want to forget. another moment of having to squash the urge of writing her back with angry words.

i also received another postcard from her yesterday.

this is why i was so happy when i wasn't hearing from her. it was so much easier to compartmentalize.

give me just one thing

2010-09-11T01:08:00.003-04:00

when my heart can't take anymore sadness over my mother, it helps to have other things in my life that are not "crazy." i have a definite need to compartmentalize my life, in a certain way:

"crazy mom"

"awesome job"

"empty love life"

"amazing family"

"wonderful friends"

"talents and hobbies"

"personal self-hatred"

when the "crazy mom" piles up, i lean back on the "talents and hobbies", the "amazing family," the "wonderful friends"... but if these piles become out of whack, or weighted down to one side of the scale, everything becomes affected.

lately, the scale is tipping in the wrong direction. the mom, the job, the absence of friends, the guy who i went on two dates with but can't commit to liking enough to pursue... these things just outweigh the good, and i start to flounder. i sleep for more hours than i should. i avoid social scenes. i barricade myself behind a wall of bull. i am trying, ever so slowly, to climb out. it would be so much easier if my boss would stop being such a jerk. being unhappy outside of work always balanced with being happy at work. but this week has been such a burden.

i want one thing to go in the good direction. that would make me feel hopeful.

hello, mr. police man. long time, no see.

2010-08-27T10:20:00.002-04:00

i should have known after receiving that afore-mentioned postcard that a visit from the local police was coming up. this is mom's MO, after all. at least this time, it was at my home at 9:30 in the morning, instead of 3 am with roommates in the house.

this time was easier than the last. the first thing out of the officer's mouth was "are you the beneficiary for your mother?" i had a minor heart attack. no one wants to hear that. it makes it sound like she died. he clarified. "or power of attorney? someone contacted us that you had been out of touch since 2006." i sighed. and then relayed the entire story.

the upside of all of this is that they asked me whether i wanted them to confirm my whereabouts and wellbeing to my mother. i said, "absolutely not. i want no contact with her at all." i also now have two very nice police sargeants in the know about my mother's illness, her usual delusions, her current whereabouts, and her priors.

i texted my brother afterwards, and he wrote back that he had a visit from the cops two days ago, and his wife wants an order of protection. i wrote back, "maybe she'll get hospitalized finally."

pipe dream, chica. not gonna happen.

what do i do?

2010-08-25T19:19:00.006-04:00

she sent me a postcard dated 8/23 that says she's cured herself with sam-e and that she wants to see me.

that same day, she wrote on her blog the following:

"So I am in despair. I have to end myself.
I cannot isolate myself or end the carnage."

i have no idea what to do. i don't believe she would ever hurt herself. this is just another dramatic moment in her mind. but it's still scary as hell.

damnit.

2010-08-12T20:03:00.001-04:00

on her blog, my mom said she tried zyprexa but threw it out because her face went numb. this means she was trying to be on medication, all on her own.

i don't understand.

sleeplessness. and hugs.

2010-07-27T00:35:00.003-04:00

despite all the optimism of late for my own growth, i have not slept in two nights, searching online about kids of the mentally ill, reading articles and stories, and replaying old memories in my mind.

i held one of my employees in my arms today for 30 minutes because she was crying, and having a panic attack. part of my job is to nurture others and help them become better people through their job. i love the work i do, and the people i work with.

but it seemed ironic that i was the comforter for kim today - that she needed to hug me to get through a panic episode. (i damn near cried when she sought me out after i calmed her down the first time, and whispered "can you just hold me? i'm feeling so scared.") because honestly, i was the one who really needed that hug. i'm scared of so many things.

i can't stop thinking about my mother recently. i can't stop reading her blog, and staring at an old photo of her. i am moving on with life, but i still feel an empty hole. and i'm voraciously searching out anything online that will help me feel better, or less alone in the world. i'm scared of losing my mother, which is irrational, as i've already lost her. but she's out there, somewhere, right?

i think she's getting worse.

2010-07-25T23:42:00.002-04:00

it's incredible, sometimes. i get myself into a lull where i no longer think of her every single moment. and then some tiny thread brings my thoughts back to her - where she is, how she is, if she's harassing people (and who they are), whether or not she'll ever show up at my door. these thoughts are usually pushed aside. i've become so talented at hiding it all again. it rises up, and i squash it back down. there are times when the ride is harder than others.

the past few weeks have been good ones. i really believe i've pulled myself out of the depressive stupor i was in for most of the past year. i'm making plans, seeing friends, filling up my days with activities - even though i still can't seem to get the hang of doing the dishes.

and then there it is again - that worry. that fear. that d r e a d. like a knot in my throat that i can't loosen, and a song comes on the playlist and i lose it. an emotional cutter to the bitter end, i pull up her blog online and read. it's so hard to follow the thoughts she has. such disjointed bits and pieces - i can recognize names and places that she is substituting or altering to fit the current illusions, and translate as best i can.

i don't know why i read it tonight - i had been feeling so good. but there it was on my screen. a long, painful entry dated july 24th. i know she is alive. i know she took a trip down near my hometown a few weeks ago. i know she is seriously hallucinating her consistent "starving, abused children" scenario where she paints herself as mother mary sent by jesus to save them. i know that she is hurt by my absence. i am hurting her.

i don't want to hurt her. that's never been my intention. there is a fundamental piece of me that knows, absolutely KNOWS, that i cannot allow her into my life again. i know the pain, and the frustration, and the devastation that it causes. but the incredible guilt - the incredible weight of knowing that i am hurting my mother is suffocating.

rationally, i know i am doing the best thing for myself. but emotionally - emotionally, i am still the hurt little girl, feeling guilty for hurting her, for cutting her off, for not being able to help her, for not being a good daughter.

i am drowning in emotional regrets that i cannot rationalize to myself, and i hate it. i hate this feeling. i hate that i am still crying over her. crying for her. and for us.

sigh of relief.

2010-07-16T00:39:00.002-04:00

the wedding was wonderful. beautiful. emotional. i spent half the time wanting to shoot half my family, and the other half smiling and loving every moment. my brother was so incredibly happy. his wife is such a beautiful person.

and my mother did not crash the party.

i knew in my heart that she wouldn't show. she has moments of clarity where she can understand how serious it would have been if she did. but everyone kept asking me. my 90-year-old grandmother said loudly, in front of everyone, "well, i guess the ****** ghost didn't make her appearance." i wanted to die. she's not a ghost. she's just mentally ill.

the kids are off on their honeymoon, and i'm still glowing from watching start their own family together.

i'd be lying if i said i didn't spend the whole time wishing i had someone in my life as well. i want what they have, and what they are building.

mishmash emotions.

2010-06-30T01:16:00.002-04:00

my brother's wedding is this weekend. i love him and his wife-to-be so much. it hurts that he asked me to find some recent pics of my mom so he could leave them with security at the front desk of the wedding venue.

finding pics of my mother is hard. out of 12,000 photos on my computer, there are only five photos from the last ten years that i have of her. 3 were with me at my college graduation (where i lean into my brother and away from her. no surprise.) 1 was at her grad school graduation (when we were still talking.) and 1 was her head shot from her online "bookstore" on lulu.com. i snatched this one on my own.

as a typical paranoid schizo, my mother has given herself a new name as well as her birth name. she actually changed it legally to this "second name" - so, using her old name, her new name, and google, i found more than i wanted.

she wrote poetry last year about me. about my brother. and it's heartbreaking poetry. when i see what she writes, or thinks, it hurts me because i know that there is a part of her that feels that way. but in the next sentence, there is more proof that she is still completely out of touch with reality. i cannot let that back into my life. i just can't.

in the meantime, there was a recent pic of her on one of these websites. she has longer hair than i remember. and she freakishly looked like me. i never thought she looked like me before. (or is it that i looked like her?)

either way, i feel depressed a bit now. the wedding is going to be bittersweet. it's an affair she wants to be at, but is not welcomed. and all i can do is pray to my g-d that she doesn't make an unscheduled appearance... how could i protect my brother from that?

no, this is the beginning.

2010-05-30T20:05:00.002-04:00

ok. i stopped bitching and whining. i took a good look at myself two weeks ago, and shored up every resource i had, and made some changes. i don't know where all the optimism came from, but it was there, all of a sudden. crystal clear and magnificent.

and this voice in my head: "you have the strength for this. if you have the strength for your mother, you have the strength for this."

why shouldn't i be happy? i deserve it!

perhaps this is the deep end.

2010-05-15T23:31:00.003-04:00

i came to admit some truths to myself this week, after returning from visiting with my brother and his fiance. and while none of this is a revelation, i am stunningly clear on the fact that i am clawing my way out of yet another depression.

i am able to say outloud:

1 - that i am dreadfully unhappy with my personal life

2 - that i lead two lives: the happy professional, and the miserable hermit

3 - that i am disappointed that my brother doesn't need me anymore

4 - that i am still unable to shut my mother's influence out completely

5 - that i spend most of my day completely hating myself.

i don't know how to fix all this. i mean, i DO know how to fix it. but i am unable to start the process. unable, or unwilling? probably the latter.

when did i get so lazy when it came to changing myself? this was always such an easy thing to start. fire myself up, and get out there and try it. now, i just want to sleep, and sit, and watch cartoons so that i don't have to do the dishes, or plan, or exercise, or make decisions. i hide in this cozy little apartment until i am FORCED to take action. when the dishes are overflowing, and i have no clean spoons. when i am out of socks.

i don't care.

i don't care about any of it.

i just want to stay in this curled up little ball, and stop moving. stop going to work. stop caring about anything.

my brain, however, is fighting this desire, but only to a point. my sad little heart is winning. and i can't help but wonder if all the dreams about my mother this week have something to do with the weight on my heart.

no, no. this is me. this is about me. i truly hate so many things about myself, that i cannot see how anyone else would ever value them. i know intellectually that this must start with my own self-image. but frankly, i think i'm going to just go to bed. have a shot of jameson. and ignore the incredible beast of guilt gnawing on my conscience.

who could ever love a fat girl?

mother's day hurts

2010-05-06T19:58:00.002-04:00

this month has been hard. particularly hard. my job is still interfering with my life, and my general state of mind. i can't seem to get from one day to the next without crying at some point. this is not good. i am not ok.

with all the unhappiness at work, it's now becoming increasingly obvious to me that i am so very, very unhappy in life. i told my group of ladies last night that i felt like i was stagnant, running in circles, and too lazy to change anything. i said, "i wish i was in the mood for healing." because honestly, my entire week means surviving from one weekend to the next.

and in the middle of all this, "woe is me," fucking mother's day is coming. this is mother's day #4 without a mother. usually, this holiday would revolve around seeing my grandmother. she spent so much time as my substitute that i know in my heart she is part mother to me as well. but i am working on mother's day. seeing mothers and kids together. and i'm going to lose it a little bit.

sunday will be the kind of day that i want to curl into a ball and drink a bottle of jameson. i'd like to forget all about it. and yes, i know it's a made-up, hallmark holiday, but it still hurts. a dull, slow pain in my heart.

even now, i feel like crying.

something's gotta give.

she's a busy little bee.

2010-04-04T02:24:00.002-04:00

the last two weeks have been telling. i fear we are approaching another explosion, but at the same time, i'm almost looking forward to some kind of movement on the whole matter. we've been at such a stalemate.

my mother called my brother's new in-laws to threaten them for "taking away her son".

she called her sister, who has a restraining order.

she mentioned in the phone call that she was coming back from rochester for a visit.

i was called by the vp of hr for my company about calls my mother has been making to their offices.

my father got one of the strangest calls she's ever made.

and, in what disturbs me the most, my "friends" on facebook have been getting random emails from my mother asking for information about my whereabouts.

i am patiently trying to process all of this. but impatiently hoping it all leads to a hospital ward.

sometimes it's better not to look.

2010-03-24T20:12:00.007-04:00

a recent excerpt from my mother's blog, which i wish i didn't feel the need to see every once in a while. so she's alive. definitely not on medication.

i don't know why i punish myself like this.

but on to the excerpt:

"Now to the real news. I have not spoken to my daughter in about 12 months. My son broke off all communication with me around January 1st, 2010.

And now, no matter how hard I try, I cannot assure myself that either one is okay.
All sorts of imaginings annoy me, at all hours of the day.
***** is dead. ******* is going to be dead.

In some ways, I am cruising for a bruising. For they simply don't want to be found.
So, this woman who had 2 children was not allowed to continue the illusion she was a mother.

Sometimes I think of the boy in Terry Pelikan's photo--the one who is like a twin of mine. Surely she must have borrowed him from Mike Polaski.

At this juncture, I have tried:
to find out from the college; to find out from Carol *******; to find out from their father; from the **********

(Do you know why I am really nervous?) In 1992, when I left my husband and we separated--I rented a cheap room from ***** ******, a Con Ed worker. His house on Rising Lane in Hicksville New York was a refuge. Shortly after I left, ***** was killed. In a newspaper article it was a work-related accident. I am convinced his mother, whom I met, blamed me for his "accident". This is simply because my son has become involved with people he calls *****, then *****, then ********. And he has disappeared. Is it "an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth"?

As for my daughter, she left her job or was fired some time ago. It was kept from me. I found she was not at the address in Flatbush Brooklyn she claimed to be living. Her whereabouts have been deliberately kept from me for some time.

Do you know how stupid they brilliant kids are? They cut off a 2, a lifeline. Their secrecy has made it impossible to protect them."

with spring comes the sun.

2010-03-16T22:32:00.003-04:00

slowly but surely, i am pulling myself out of this. i still hate my boss. i still hate my job, as it exists now. but i am making some small changes -

i'm taking a photography class.

i'm trying (again) to lose some weight. just a little.

i'm seeing friends on weekends.

i'm having them over for dinner in two weeks.

i'm taking a vacation.

not sure how long the optimism will last, but i'll take it.

she sent me an email last week asking where i was... and that she feels like we haven't spoken in two years. i didn't write back.

driving

2010-02-10T01:15:00.005-05:00

i was in the car for a bit on sunday, and found myself thinking about my mother for the first time in a week. i could actually hear myself say, "wait, when was the last time...?" i don't know what this means. maybe i'm hurting less lately.

she was so beautiful.

i almost wanted to keep the car going all the way up to rochester just to check on her.

had to remind myself that this isn't who she is anymore. we can't go back.

happy birthday, brother.

2010-01-28T20:32:00.003-05:00

it's funny how you can read the last six months worth of your thoughts, and realize that you still think most of them. that nothing has changed. that you are still complaining about the same bullshit.

i'm tired of all of it.

i'm sick of the depression.

but still find my lazy ass sitting at this computer, reading facebook profiles to live vicariously through others, fantasizing about the life i could be having, getting jealous over the lives my friends have, and generally telling myself over and over again in my head, "you're fat. you're a lazy bitch. and you don't deserve anything happy. no one will ever love you like this."

this speech goes on repeat for hours. hours. so i read the new york times. or cuteoverload. or shop online for clothes i know won't fit. or watch youtube videos of other people's lives. or think about vacations i could take if i just ran up my credit card a little more.

what kind of existence is this?

i find myself asking, well, even if your mother did manage to check herself into a hospital, would it make any difference in how you see yourself?

the answer, of course, is no.

this unhappiness, this depression, really doesn't have much to do with my mother. i'm starting to understand that now. it's all to do with me. the absolute self-hatred and self-abuse that i inflict upon myself.

i just want to be over it already. take a page from a photo back in the day when i was smiling for real, and not just for a customer's sake.

but it's so hard to climb out of this. i'm trying. slowly. but there's always something to make me slip right back down.

i miss my brother. spending time with him always makes me feel like i'm worth something. just look at him now. he's amazing. all those years of our heartache, of my protecting him, of my pushing and worry and anxiety that he was ok, his drug addiction and his own struggles with depression, resulted in this incredible guy. and it makes me feel like the top of the world, because i know that he validates my life. the indelible memories of us with her. the awkward-as-fuck car rides to her apartment-of-the-month. the screaming matches. the fact that he was the only person for so many years that would listen to my anxieties and fears, and could actually understand them, without just saying, "oh, i'm so sorry." the idea that someday we could heal ourselves with the new friends and families we would create. all these twisted-up memories, and hopes, and dreams that i shared with someone.

maybe that's what i'm really talking about. the ability to share my life with someone. a witness to the good, the bad, the bullshit. i want to share all these feelings with someone, but i'm unwilling to believe there's anyone who would ever want to kiss me/love me/hold me as i am.

(amazing how it is still hard to write exactly what i'm feeling. i constantly want to edit this stream of consciousness.)

he really did it?

2010-01-22T00:01:00.003-05:00

my brother actually called my mother and told her he doesn't want her at the wedding. he has had discussions with his fiance about finding the perfect balance to keep her at enough of a distance not to piss him off too much... he's strategically positioning himself to avoid the "i'm never talking to her again" path.

this is so unlike him it almost scares me. after all this time, he's growing up. he doesn't need me as much anymore to push him in the right direction or step in for him. he's doing it on his own.

i'm so used to protecting him that i don't know how to let go of that burden.

this could potentially be the weirdest year yet.

group session for january

2010-01-07T22:45:00.002-05:00

last night was my second time at the "kids of crazy parents" meeting. that's what i call it. so much easier than saying "adult children of the mentally ill." just paraphrase it so normal people understand what you're talking about.

there's something about this group of women that unravels me in good ways, and bad. These women are twice my age, and each has such a different story than mine. But then there are the threads that keep coming up for all of us. We all have these similar fears, and pitfalls, and shortcomings, and patterns.

i wish i could put into adequate words how much it meant to me to find real people in the world who i can truly relate to about my mother. perhaps i'm replacing the closeness i had with my brother with strangers, but the fact of the matter is that these women understand on a level that i've never experienced before. and i've spent a total of 4 hours with them. that's it. those 4 hours were enough to bring a sense of kinship so strong that it leaves me feeling stronger and more validated than i ever have before.

all the sharing, and reliving old fears, took their toll today at work. i was mostly a basket case. i continue to derail and belittle myself in every situation at work, and my super-demanding boss is not letting up on me, even after i tell her how fragile i am.

i wish i could have six months off. six months paid to go and take care of myself the way i should. if i didn't work 50 hours a week, i'd go to the gym more often. i'd try to fix some of the damage. i'd find a therapist. but my job prevents me from doing little more than sleep and eat in the hours between my shifts.

i love my job. but lately i wonder if it is an enabler in my poor choice of lifestyle.

old movies.

2010-01-03T21:45:00.003-05:00

my father and his family took me out for my 27th birthday on new year's day. surprised myself this year by not making any resolutions at all. most likely this is due to the fact that i have too many to pick. but i digress.

after dinner, my grandmother (more mother to me, really) said she had some old home movies and that we (my father, his sister, and my cousin) should watch one. i found one labeled with my fourth birthday on it. a 23-year-old moment in time frozen in a celluloid web, which i had no idea existed until now.

and how i wish i could put into words all the feelings that occurred as i watched it. it's going to have to remain free form, because there are too many, and no way to prioritize, organize, or otherwise sort through them.

my grandparents -- all four of them, in one room. my mother's mother, and the fact that i did not recognize her because it was in the years before my first memory of her - lying in a hospital bed from the stroke and the cancer that would eventually lead to her death. they were all there. in one place, at one time. they collectively missed so many moments of my life. the bat mitzvah. the graduations. that recital where i finally got to sing with a full orchestra. all those meaningless little achievements up until now.

my mother -- so young. it was hard to even listen to her voice. so young. so pretty. with acne, just like me. but even with the joy around her, i could see in the video a moment where she was outcasting herself. removing herself. at her core, uncomfortable.

my father -- also so young. excited new father. his two year old son roaming around from grandpa's legs, to his aunt's lap, to his sister's room, babbling baby talk all the way. my father, so blissfully unaware of the marital heartbreak he would suffer.

seeing my parents, in one room, conversing, loving, acting like a unit instead of adversaries... the promise of the future and the young children they were raising in that crappy little garden apartment in suburbia.

and there i was - beautiful. running around in a tutu. doing plies. showing off. playing with my cousin, who i barely talk to now.

was it real? did it actually happen? that big family was in one room, at one time, without fighting? it seemed like someone else's life on that tv screen. but i still squealed to see my childhood bedroom, and felt the flood of memories for that little blue table with the playskool chairs, the ugly shag mudyellow carpet, the ancient mac computer on my mother's work desk... i don't remember many moments of my childhood. and that video is the antithesis of what i can remember.

and how i wish... how i wish that someday i can have that kind of family again. one that i will build. one that i will cherish and love. someday, i wish, someone will fall in love with me, and help me find the beautiful little tutu-wearing kid i used to be, and teach me how to trust and love again.

(i want that mommy back. but i can't. we can't ever go back to that.)

never assume things.

2009-12-08T22:45:00.002-05:00

after a week of hyperventilating and crying, i finally talked to my aunt and uncle. i feel like an idiot for overreacting the way i did.

the reason they are not coming is not that they can't deal with my mother. rather, my mother made some incredibly upsetting comments about their children in a letter they received. the letter turned into a renewal of their restraining order. the court sent someone to their house to interview their children and determine any level of abuse. and they are afraid of involving their kids in a possibly upsetting situation with my mother. they also don't want to tempt fate by potentially causing a scene during the wedding.

and i understand. at every level. i had to go through child service interviews because of my mother. i'm mortified that my cousins had to go through the same... how can i ever apologize for her behavior? for the necessity of that invasion into their lives by the court system? i feel like... a heel. a burden. an annoyance.

but now, for the first time, i am starting to lose my hope that my mother is ever going to be hospitalized. every day that goes by makes me feel like she is lost for ever. that she will never be medicated. that she will never be in my life as a mother ought to be. (but didn't i really know that deep down all along?)

having a mentally ill parent is endless grieving. grieving for yourself, and grieving for the incomplete loss of a parent.

and now i have to worry about my brother, and the potential disasters that could happen at this wedding. he will spend his entire wedding worrying about his mother. she could just sit and not cause any problems. but it's not likely. she could start a situation with me - yell at me, curse me out, etc. she could start a situation with someone else. the police could come. my future sister-in-law could be made to feel upset, or uncomfortable. there are so many possible negatives, and the only positive is that my brother would have his "mom" there.

everything is so complicated. and all i want is to find a really wonderful therapist to talk all of this out with in person. cry with. someone to answer my thoughts back with some insight. because while i have come to rely on this blog to air out my thoughts, and it brings me some peace, it is not helping me deal with the situation or the emotional scars that run so deeply.

i am emotionally raw, and my seams are showing.

wedding drama.

2009-11-30T04:41:00.002-05:00

my brother is closer to my mother than i will ever be. some people have "his" and "her" towels, but we got "his" and "her" parents. frankly i think i did better in the deal, but i can't blame him for his feelings for his mother. it's a natural thing for him. i find it difficult to even say that i love my mother... most of the time i don't feel anything towards her at all.

but i digress.

my brother is getting married in july. he wants his mother at the wedding. no one else does, including his bride, but she is such a wonderful woman that she is putting up with it anyway. because it's what my brother wants. he wants his mother at his wedding. it's a normal desire.

the problem is that the rest of her family wants nothing to do with her. her sister has a restraining order against her. her brother has a restraining order against her. but when they got engaged, my brother and his fiance talked to everyone to assure them it would be a good time.

i got a text tonight from my brother that the uncle has now pulled his family out of the wedding. they are not going to be there. i'm trying to process this thought, but it can't seem to quite sink in just yet.

if her own daughter, if i can deal with her being at this wedding, why is it so difficult for every one else? how could her brother's hurt be any more than her own daughter? if i can put aside my anger, and resentment, and ANGER, to be at my brother's wedding with her presence, why can't any one else? the wedding isn't about my mother. it isn't about my uncle. it's about my brother, his bride, and the life they are creating. for whatever misguided reason, my brother wants his mother in his life. and no one else's opinion really matters. that's his comfort level, his wants, and his needs.

i am so angry with my uncle, whom i have always loved and adored, that i'm finding it difficult to breathe, let alone sleep. all i want to do is yell and scream at them. how am i supposed to react? i am incredibly close to my uncle and his wife. they have been my lifeline at times when i felt alone with the weight of my mother's illness.

but now, i don't even want to talk to them. let alone see them. i am so outraged at the selfishness, the cruelty, and the meanness...

i don't know what else to do other than keep my mouth shut. but my uncle must realize that the bond i share with my brother is sacred? if not because of the fact that we are siblings, then certainly because we have shared the burden of our mother for 25 years together. we have held each other when we were upset. we have carried each other. we have been each other's strength. and i don't care how righteous my uncle thinks he is being -- my brother will always, ALWAYS, come first in my heart.

oy.

my mother's mother

2009-11-17T22:28:00.002-05:00

i was cleaning out my hard drive, and found a whole treasure trove of photos that my mom must have sent me at some point when she was still on meds. and i found one of her mother that made me cry. i look like my grandmother. i never realized this before.

i wish she were still here to get her daughter into a hospital like she did in the '60s. i wish she were here to make it better.

turkey

2009-11-15T00:01:00.002-05:00

i'm in the new apartment. it feels empty, but it's full of stuff. boxes of stuff. and every box seems to contain an old piece of my soul. some memento that meant something at some point. but now? my life feels empty. i work, work, work. and then work some more. and let the laundry pile up, the dishes fill the sink, the cat litter stay. and then work again to keep myself from thinking. thinking about her. about myself. about all the things i want in my life but seem so far out of reach.

my self worth is amazing. i know that i am a strong woman. a beautiful strong woman. i know that i am smart, and determined, and loved by a band of family and friends. but there's a little voice in my head that drowns that knowledge out. and lately it's been screaming. "you're fat. you're ugly. you'll never meet a man. you'll never have kids. your brother will have everything you've ever wanted for yourself, so just keep pushing your career. who cares about a balance of life? sure, you want to go to the gym, but you'll look so fat in those tight pants. just watch more tv and eat some sugary crap."

and i let it win, 95% of the time. i made a turkey tonight, just for myself. told myself that i could clean the house while it was cooking, and unpack some more. but i just sat and watched movies. and taped more movies with DVR. didn't do a damn thing. and tomorrow, i'm back to work in dirty jeans and the same shroud of self-hate.

i want to be out of this cycle, but i'm drowning in it.

that turkey made me think of my mother's mother. she would have been proud, if she were alive. it was beautiful, and delicious.

family gatherings

2009-10-13T20:05:00.002-04:00

every few months or so, my mother's family plans a get together. they don't do it out of pure love. to go into the dynamics of my mother's family could take a book in and of itself. so let's simplify.

mom's sister: almost as nutty as my mother. the hippy little sister who followed my mother into the LSD and ashrams of the 1970s with the adoration of a younger sibling who felt an affinity with my mother's odd choices. you could blame the times, if you want. partially i blame their hot-headed father and cigarette-totin'-sunday-dinner-throwin' mother. my mom and her sister wore saris to their brother's bar mitzvah, if that helps put this picture together for you. whereas my mother married her high school friend that understood her, her sister married an attractive greek boy, and promptly moved into suburban never-never-land to get the nice house in the respectable neighborhood. her kids are almost the same age as me and my brother. they were raised selfish, materialistic, uncommitted to school, and mostly interested in their clothes, friends, and popularity. the last time we got along was when we were 5. needless to say, they are practically strangers to me. my aunt is now a yogi, living with another yogi, and preaches well being and happiness, but just comes across as a ditzy new ager who has very little anchor in reality. she, too, is incredibly selfish. there's really no other way to label it.

mom's brother: the little brother left behind his two big sisters. always cleaning up the mess. the sibling who actually did something with himself. he's described it to me as being the "outsider." unlike my mom and her sister, he actually finished college and went into a definite field. he married an angel, and created the perfect little family. they do all the right things. say the right things. have the right friends and family friends and vacations and make everything ok. they have taken care of me when i have nothing to give but depression and i love them so very very much. every time my mother has gone off the deep end, my uncle has been there with an understanding and compassion that makes me feel unworthy of it.

mom's brother's wife's family: a hoot. i love these people. i wish they were my own family sometimes.

so, back to the story. mom's brother, who seems to feel that he and his wife must "hold" the family together now that grandpa is gone, has these get togethers twice a year. and this weekend was the latest. so it was me, my uncle and his family, his wife's family, my mom's sister, her yogi-spiritual-in-name-husband and her two kids. out of the entire room, i really just wanted to spend time with my uncle and his little family. they're the only ones i feel close to anymore. we've been on vacations together. i adore my little cousins, who are now in high school and starting to enjoy all those fun times with friends and crushes and first drinks...

but there was my mother's sister. reminding me so much of my mother it almost hurt. same mannerisms, same awkward comments. same face. and all i could think was, "what a waste." my mother's illness is such a waste. i always feel like my mother's daughter. like that is the label i will always have when i'm near people who know her. i know that my uncle doesn't think of me like that, but it's what it feels like.

most of the night was spent in idle chit chat. and then my aunt, with the lack of censorship she has always been blessed with, came out with "why don't you go on jenny craig like me? try to lose some weight? what do your doctors say?"

i wanted to punch her in the face, stand up, and leave.

yes, i'm fat. yes, i stress eat. yes, i eat my feelings away when i feel so depressed that i don't leave my house for two days. but don't fucking make me feel like shit, when every other thought i have on a regular basis is, "i hate myself. i hate myself. i hate myself." i don't need it. i don't fucking need it, especially when you are sitting right there, looking and sounding like my mother in a setting where she should have been. don't fucking say that.

i have no idea what happened the rest of the night. my uncle asked me if i was ok as i left, and i started to cry, and mumbled something about a "waste". somehow i made it home.

but i chain smoked the whole way. and i really don't feel like seeing my aunt for another 6 months.

nami walk

2009-10-01T09:36:00.002-04:00

i'm also thinking of doing the nami-nyc walk in her honor. something to DO other than sit and wait for her. at least i could raise funds for others, right?

on the move again.

2009-10-01T09:32:00.002-04:00

one step further away from my mother. i'm moving for the eighth time in five years. it's the job, but i can't pretend it isn't me too. destined to be a nomad, i suppose. the last person to put down roots in my family was my aunt in the 1970's. the rest of us still rent. i realized with a slight sort of glee that my mother no longer has my phone number for work. she can't call me and harass me at my job anymore. but i know at some point that someone else will tell her where i've transferred, and the explanations to coworkers will have to begin again. i dread it. but i also want it, if only to know she's alive.

the job

2009-09-10T22:14:00.002-04:00

i love my job. everything about it. i'm probably one of the few people in the world who can say that outloud and mean it. my one sadness is explaining my mother's phone calls to my coworkers. they're so wonderfully protective of me. they know her voice, and almost always "screen" calls for me. i wish i could have my own extension, and she could leave all the crazy voicemails she wants. but we only have one group line. having to explain your mother's illness over and over and over again is just hard.

i just found out i've been promoted to assistant manager. this is huge. this is bigger than huge. this is everything i've worked for in the last three years. and all i can think about is, "lord, i hope they don't tell her what store i transferred to."

this is my chance for another clean break. maybe she won't find out. maybe i won't have to retell the same old sob story to a new crew.

unlikely.

recent news.

2009-08-26T21:22:00.002-04:00

mom's been a busy little bee. the state police had come looking for info on her a few months ago because she sent a threatening letter to a public official. we didn't know where she was at the time, although my brother seemed to know she had changed her name and moved somewhere north. turns out it's actually true. she legally changed her name to some blatantly vanilla americana name, and moved into a nursing home in the worst slum in an upstate city. the cops know where she is, and who she is, and she has already made quite the name for herself at the local authorities.

so my question remains: why don't they just drag her to the hospital already?

the more time passes, the more sure i become that i will never get my mother back. she will never check herself in, and the cops will never force her because she's not really that much of a threat. just a crazy woman who harasses the local post office for "tampering" with her mail. perhaps this is how it will be from now on - her being somewhere far away, living alone in assisted living on disability, and me never feeling comfortable enough to see her again.

what a waste.

song dedication?

2009-08-14T22:02:00.002-04:00

somehow i rediscovered sarah mclachlan's "drifting" tonight. and it's eerily perfect language for what i think my heart is saying every now and then.

"you've been gone so long

all that you know has been shuffled aside

as you bask in the glow

of the beautiful strangers that whisper your name

do they fill up the emptiness

larger than life is your fiction

in a universe made up of one

you have been drifting for so long

i know you don't want to come down

somewhere below you there's people who love you

and they're ready for you to come home,

please come home"

mystery package and the aqarium

2009-08-03T05:05:00.003-04:00

my best friend took me to the aquarium with her daughter today. i think my mentioning of the fact that i have spent the last two month's worth of weekends in a depressed funk had something to do with it. and i had a good time. but even now, it's 5 am and i couldn't possibly tell you why i'm still awake.

my building's front door had a a fed ex door tag waiting for me the other day. they left it with my super. i didn't order anything. i'm not expecting anything. i'm extremely confused over what it might be. and hoping it's not from my mother. she shouldn't have my address, and if she does, it might freak me out a bit. i don't want her showing up here someday.

future

2009-07-31T13:20:00.002-04:00

going to visit the brother was needed. it felt so good to be somewhere else. in the middle of someone else's family. we talked about what would happen in the future. he is the only family member still talking to her now. apparently she applied for disability and got it. i wonder what kind of disability she claimed to have. so maybe my wish will not come true. maybe she will not check herself into a hospital out of desperation. maybe this situation will never resolve itself.

i feel knocked down.

visiting the lil bro

2009-07-23T11:59:00.001-04:00

i'm heading down to visit my brother in the morning. i need it. i've felt like a depressed fuck for the past few weeks. rarely getting out of bed on my days off. not calling friends. eating everything in the fridge. this is never a good sign. i wound up hysterical on the phone with the brother two weeks ago, blabbering on about how much i hate myself and the newly decided fate that i would be alone my entire life.

i know what's really talking.

but when i go down to see him, i'm hoping we can talk about mom a bit. he's getting married next summer, and i'm not sure how it's going to be to have her at the wedding. yes, it's far in the future. yes, it doesn't really matter right this second. but i'm anxious about it already.

the other women.

2009-06-26T19:54:00.004-04:00

it occurred to me today, in the midst of feeling like half a grown up and thinking about a conversation i had with my aunt last weekend, that my grandmother and aunt have been my mother for 16 years now. and i've very, very lucky. they are such beautiful amazing women.

no wonder my mother was always jealous of them. she used to call and harass them about trying to take her daughter away from her.

i still can't understand how she couldn't figure out it was always her behavior that caused the rift. it will always be her.

fucking facebook.

2009-06-23T20:04:00.006-04:00

she sent me a friend request on facebook today with the following message:

"Honey, such a serious photo! I hope we can remain friends as we were until around 2006. Won't you please add me to your list of friends?"

i want to punch her in the head. she also sent me another damn email from her new email address which i had not blocked yet, and addressed it to "nancy." my name is not nancy. so i wrote her back, cursing quite a bit, and calling her a fucking psychotic bitch. made me feel better.

then i blocked her new email address.

history lesson.

2009-06-18T03:15:00.006-04:00

old emails are funny. found this one tonight from mom 4 years ago:

"Hi

I've been watching the anarchy at the Convention Center down there.

I tried calling some regional politicos with very little result.

The government is airlifting supplies to these people.

The result well might be civil war.

Can you get in touch with [deleted]--she's got legal connections--

is there any correct approach to government officials to get

some action or people to jump before something more horrendous and indelible takes place?

What do you both think might be done tonight or tomorrow?

I will be waiting your reply (and avoiding MSNBC).

Ma"

my single-sentence response:

"calm the fuck down."

i laughed a little when i read it tonight.

wednesday.

2009-06-18T01:46:00.002-04:00

no news on the mother. i never know why i care so much. either she calls and i get upset/feel guilt, or she doesn't call and i worry/feel guilty. i've made it for three years telling everyone i didn't care where she was. but the truth is that if there's some kind of contact - either a phone call at work, or an email with some paranoid hallucination bullshit - at least i know she's alive.

quiet day.

2009-06-17T01:46:00.005-04:00

didn't hear from her at all today. a coworker mentioned she had called the store and left a paranoid message last weekend but she (the coworker) didn't want to upset me. predictably, i then felt like crap for the rest of my shift.

trying to figure out how to find people going through the same thing. web searches don't seem to come up with anything useful other than a forum on shizophrenia.com. i thought about sharing this blog with my facebook friends, but then realized i would be censoring myself all the time as a result. and i don't want to censor myself anymore than necessary.

this is supposed to be my own private outlet.

where i can say things like:

[sometimes i wonder if my mother's death would be an easier kind of grief, if only because there would be some kind of closure possible.]

where i can write things like:

[in a morning light,

small creases

looking back in a rearview mirror

on the way to her family

feeling the guilty weight of my mother not being there

and the unbearable relief of my mother not being there.

self-portraits caught in moments of not knowing

where i'm going next,

but revelling in the suddenly grown-up feeling

i have swirling around my ankles

like a skirt my mother

might have worn.

i feel my twentyfifth year

flowing as a cadence

a sweet song beginning

and ending

with faith

determination

and a grace

being taught

in the boughs of brooklyn.]

this is my own little anonymous space. and that's how i need it to be right now.

her latest email.

2009-06-16T01:36:00.008-04:00

I had been blocking her email address. But she came up with a new one:

"Your letter [in which all I said was "go to a hospital and get help"] is incontrovertible evidence that you are a paid shill, probably a German transplant put in place of the dear daughter I lost sometime ago. You are patronizing a woman with the equivalent of a Ph.D. who has "lost a leg" so to speak=you. When I find out the owner of you, the parrot, I will redress my grievances. I spent 21 years raising a female benedict arnold. You are cut off unless I am on my deathbed, when you can beg my forgiveness. You are a traitor, and I no longer love you. For you are not a daughter. You are incapable of it.

Regards"

And then, when I sent a response that said the exact same "go to a hospital and get help" with a "fuck you" thrown in, she replied:

"Someone really worked your head over. I suggest you get a mind shampoo. You are heading for hell in a haybasket. It's over for you now."

and then one minute later:

"In fact, I think you murdered the good one, ate her, and took her place. How do you like those apples?"

Again, I responded "go to a hospital and get help." She won't go. The "fuck you" was probably unwarranted but it really made me feel better at the time.

who i am now.

2009-06-16T00:59:00.004-04:00

my mother's illness is a part of me. i have my good weeks of coping, and my bad weeks. the good weeks usually consist of visits with friends, cleaning the house, and keeping in touch with family. the bad weeks usually consist of staying in bed for my entire weekend, hating myself and my lonely little life, and crying in public when i start to listen to certain songs on my ipod.

this was a bad week. perhaps thats where the blog idea came from.

but how to tell the story?

2009-06-16T00:05:00.004-04:00

the truth is that it's hard for me to tell the entire story in just one entry. but i'll try to at least get you to the here-and-now.

i spent the first ten years of my life in suburbia with mom, dad, and brother. we had a two-bedroom garden apartment in a typical post-ww2 suburban haven on long island. my grandparents lived 30 minutes away. my best friend lived in the apartment 5 doors away. my brother and i played "school" in the courtyard, and i'm sure there were some lemonade stands that happened at one point or another. but there are other memories too. less happy ones. my parents fighting in the living room, with my brother and i listening from our room. my parents fighting in the car. my father storming out to cool off, only to return a few hours later. i think this was about the point in time that i learned the phrase "oh, take your g-damn medication already."

when i was about ten, she sat me down in the kitchen, and told me she was leaving. i wasn't sad. i don't remember crying. but i remember thinking, without fail, that i didn't want to live with her.

fast forward to middle school. she had stopped taking medication completely. the family court had become familiar and constant, with my mother's accusations of child abuse against my father. all baseless. the local police became acquainted with her antics. she smashed a window at my father's new apartment when he told her she didn't have visitation that day. i refused to see her for a few months.

and then, one beautiful day in high school, about five years after she had initially left and stopped taking meds, my father told me she had been in the hospital for the past week. everything changed. that hospital, and the cops that dragged her there, became everything that i had ever wished for. somehow they had gotten her back on meds. and my father started to divulge her history to me. i was about 15. it was time. i hadn't had a mother for most of my preadolescence.

and while my father was my rock, he was still unsure of how to handle the "first period" speech. most of the things i was supposed to learn from my mother, i learned in health class. i learned from my best friends. from their mothers. from my grandmother. and even now, i am still learning from them. but never my mother. never her.

after her hospital stay, lithium brought a quiet change to our relationship. she became a different person. kind. attentive. went back to school and studied with gusto. found a stable apartment. i almost began to get to know her. high school came and went. she sent me off to the prom with all the other mothers. and i got used to it.

college started. but somewhere in the middle of it, she started to fall apart again. i started seeing a therapist. she would call 3 or 5 times in the middle of the night, and i felt helpless. i didn't want to shut the phone off, just in case... just in case... but at the same time, i had no boundaries for her. my therapist then taught me steadily that she was going to continue leaving me in a crumpled ball unless i shut the phone off. and so i began laying down the boundaries of our relationship. she didn't really obey them. but i ignored her antics unless she did. it almost worked.

i graduated from college about five years ago, and moved 4 hours away. she was my first visitor, and i felt awkward the entire visit. i didn't really want her there. but at the same time, i was homesick for family. i felt guilty.

a year and a half after that, all hell broke loose. she stopped taking meds. she quit her teaching job. she started spending vast quantities of money. she started the paranoia speeches again. she started the phone calls again. it was thanksgiving. by january, i had police officers at my apartment at 3 am because she called them in a panic that something had "happened" to me.

my carefully laid-out life fell apart. all the feelings of resentment, of guilt, of anger, of helplessness, came back in a flash. my brother, whom i had effectively raised since the age of eight, was failing out of school. i had no choice but to quit grad school and move home. my father said i was the only one who could help get her back to the hospital. so my brother and i cornered her one rainy january day. she responded by almost hitting me with her car, and hitting my brother's car. i fell to the ground sobbing "mommy", like that lost little ten year old losing her mother all over again.

since that day three years ago, i have felt like a motherless daughter. i had told her before that if she were not on her meds, that she would lose me as a daughter. that she would not be welcome at my passover table. that she would never know her grandchildren. but her illness won her loyalty, and i must keep my word.

how many others are there out there like me? or not like me? how many others have cut their mothers out of their lives in order to move forward? or have they sacrificed their happiness to try and keep their mothers sane?

how many of you are out there? how are you dealing with it? how is your family dealing?

my goal on this blog is to tell my mother's story as it goes on. to meet others like me. and learn from them.