Throw mama from the train
I don’t even know how to begin this entry. My head is light and how far from tears I may be at any given moment depends on, well, nothing. I feel like I was beat up and I have little energy left.
I guess I can start with some emails I sent via my phone to friends through the day. I thank them for humoring me if I’m becoming annoying; it’s good to be able to share with someone what I’m going through. Since I’m the type to only require an ear or a shoulder, reading my email is appreciated more than I can say.
Subject: Be proud of me
I’m cleaning out the closet at the end of the hall and she walked up and tried to start with me. I told her straight up that I’m not letting her pick a fight with me and she kept going. I repeatedly said I agree with her and that I’m not interested in fighting. She kept going and told Gracie that I was mean and I laughed and said I haven’t said one nasty word and I said I told myself that I would not let her coax me into a fight and I was proud of myself that I did it (and did a victory arms thingy) and it was a great feeling. She did not care for my feelings of accomplishment and quickly, while she thought no one was looking, went to her room and locked her door.
Oh, wait, she’s back out again. Methinks she doesn’t like being ignored.
I will NOT give in.
My friend Sandy replied with, “Well done.” And to her I replied:
I thought so! She has been pouting ever since. When she was going off she started on something about hurting her. I’m not quite sure how organizing her hall closet (not throwing anything away, mind) is hurting her but I also don’t have the kind of time to sit around by myself and get all paranoid about nothing.
I adore the high road. The view from up here is magnificent!
Up until then I was doing pretty well. By the next email, however, I had lost a few points for maturity:
Subject: Give me strength
I still won’t fight and she’s not liking that one bit. She started on me again and called me an asshole so I mooned her. Now I’m evil and she had to order so much from QVC because I (the one with kids and a busy life) never took her shopping. I guess my brother seems to be exempt somehow. What is she talking about? I have no clue either.
Whee!
Just a side note: most of the stuff from QVC is either unopened or unused. I’m not sure what it was that she crucially had to order from QVC to keep her alive but it most assuredly was not the fry cutter, George Foreman grill or the double boiler that were in the closet unopened.
My next email to Maja demonstrates another stunning attempt to push my buttons. The subject line is a joke between us since we both have Eastern European mothers who we (will) live with (her stories are way better than mine):
Subject: Kurva
My mother tried to push my buttons by telling me she wants a pizza for dinner. Instead of telling her how bad that is for her I said fine. At first she said she wanted vegetable pizza but it seems that she changed her mind and wants pepperoni. Good for her. Have two for all I care. I told her that she’s an adult and she can eat whatever she wants.
Retyping the day’s fiasco sounds too tiring so I’m going to also c&p snippets from an IM conversation I had with a friend.
I’m home but before we left she was doing that underhanded comments thing you see divorced parents doing sometimes.
Iain hurt Iz’s hand in the door and I was holding Iz and she wanted my mom. This makes my mom really happy because it seems her job now is to try and manipulate my children to start “loving” her more.
She wants them to favor her in some sort of validation that she’s wonderful and I’m evil (which she called me today).
Thinking about Iz going to her and the thought of her being manipulated by my mother to prefer her rips my heart out. I’m sobbing about it.
She’s three years-old. It’s easy. With Gracie I explained to her what was going on because she’s six and seems to be more mature for her age. Izzie will prefer my mom because she doesn’t understand what my mother is up to. I have to discipline Iz but my mom will act like the good guy and cuddle her if I make her cry by not letting her do something that’s inappropriate. I can see now my mother slipping her food all the time just because she knows that I want to get Iz not to eat out of boredom.
I don’t want Iz to equate food with love and grow up with the weight problems me and my brother did when my mother would stuff us with “love” to make up for my abusive father.
This probably bothers me more than anything. She can start whatever she’d like with me but the thought of her trying to undermine me using my kids as pawns is very upsetting. I guess all I can do is keep on top of it and make them understand that no matter what, no one loves them more than me and Jeff even if we seem mean by not letting them do whatever they want. If my mother loved them as much as she claims, she wouldn’t stoop to dragging them into something they have nothing to do with. Her desire to spite me is greater than being mature enough to keep them out of any issues she has with me. She feels justified though. I told her I didn’t appreciate it and apparently she thinks I should be “born again so that I might have a heart next time.” By born again she does not mean in the Christian sense. I doubt she even knows what being Born Again means. I guess I should go back to the womb and start over so that I’m not the evil being I am this time around. Okay, crazy.
Arguing with her is fruitless. She’s by far not the first person I’ve seen like this though. She combines paranoia, mental illness that I can’t quite put my finger on and the victim/martyr act in a very infuriating way. I’ve been at the receiving end of this flavor of crazy and the difference there is that I can (and have) walk away from that. You can’t defend yourself against people who read more into your actions than is there and who take everything and twist it around in that immature, passive-aggressive victim/martyr/spoiled brat sort of way. Add delusion and mental illness into it and if you can, you have to run and run fast.
Don’t get me wrong. I go the extra mile for those I consider a friend. Some people consider it a flaw given what I’ve put up with in the past but I chalk that up to life learning I guess. What you have to evaluate is where you are in a relationship with someone and whether or not it’s worth putting in that extra five miles. I have file-mile friends right now and I’m so thankful. I hope I never mistreat them the way I’ve been mistreated in the past. I’d never forgive myself if I did.
In my mother’s case, however, I’m stuck for the duration. I realize that I used the word stuck but dealing with this, that’s how I feel. I don’t have to do anything to have her start up with me and I can either egg it on and argue or just tell her that I refuse to fight and try and compose myself until she gets bored. I feel for others who have to put up with such toxicity in their lives. If it wasn’t for Jeff and the kids I’d be thisclose to figuring out a tragic way out of this. It’s amazing how another person in your life can take such a toxic hold and make you rather not be around at all.
