Shut the freakin’ door! It’s cold out there!
It was one of the coldest days I’ve seen in quite awhile today. We were going in full gear from head to toe, reminiscent of little Randy Parker on A Christmas Story. Given that I have a narrow range of comfort, I am longing for the weather to turn to 72 degree days with no humidity and a light breeze. I call it hammock weather. How lucky for me that I should be in bed soon. That way I can keep dreaming.
We had dinner at the in-laws tonight and I took some laundry over there to get us by for the next couple days. I have a shitload to wash on Wednesday and I’m not looking forward to lugging the stuff to the laundromat but the silver lining is that it’ll be some time to myself. How’s that for a positive spin?
Okay, so I’ll keep going with the mother stuff.
~~~
January 7, 2008
N: OK. The paranoia is common with the early stages of dementia, so I thought I’d ask.
She’s always been suspicious and paranoid and so was my dad. They both slowly alienated themselves from their friends and they would say that their friends were jealous and whatnot. I didn’t think a lot about it when I was growing up although it didn’t seem to make sense. A couple of old friends stopped by at the beginning of last week right after we moved (who changed their plans to help us move a couple days earlier BTW). It was nice to have company and they called Jeff to see if it was okay to drop by. They came by and my mom had an audience so embarrassingly she started in about different things. When they left she said my girlfriend had hurt her feelings because she said something which I know she didn’t say because I was standing there with them the entire time. Then she switched gears saying that she felt bad for me because what kind of friends would come by right after I moved with three kids bla bla bla. I told her that it was nice for friends to stop by and I enjoyed their visit. She replied that they weren’t really friends and in so many words said that they were fooling me (?). I forget what I replied with to which she replied that sometimes it’s better not to have friends. She then went on to lament how she’s always given everything to everyone and everyone treats her so poorly. I told her that it’s impossible for everyone else to be the problem and it may very well just be her. I pointed out that she’s not a victim of anything and she argued that she *is* the victim. It’s then that I told her I was done arguing and that I wasn’t going to go around and around with her anymore.
I just came downstairs after breaking up an argument between her and Iz. While I was gone she put crystal stuff in a huge bookcase thingy (part has doors) and Iz was taking the stuff out. She was mad about that and said that Iz was four and knew better. After I scolded Iz I told my mother that I had put the stuff out of Iz’s reach so if she insists that those things be in her reach then she shouldn’t cry and pout when something happens to them. She said that she cleaned because the cabinet was a mess and what if someone came over. I pointed out that no one ever comes over and she remarked that it’s better that way (?). She mumbled something about it being her house and she’ll do what she wants bla bla bla and I thought, it’s your house but we’ll be paying the mortgage?
I brought Iz downstairs to watch TV and now she’ll pout about it and claim that she’s more alone now than when she lived alone and how she feels like she’s pushed out of the house. She’ll go in her room and shut the door and cry about how everyone is so mean to her (while we’ve been tiptoeing around her). I could go on for days. I again have a huge headache and regret I had taken this on at all. Now I’m screwed and stuck. I promise to try and not become *that* person who only talks about the shit in their life to the point of annoyance. I just needed to vent. :/
~~~
I’m so tired from all the work I’ve been doing around here and I’ve not been this depressed since they told me that Iain was cognitively impaired. I never thought I’d be that down again (I literally sobbed every day for months and Gracie was a newborn/infant on top of it, until I got some help). One of the moms at school had something similar she went through when she lived with her mother (and husband and kids) until she died and it’s so good to have some support and understanding and it’s great to have my friends to make me smile. I strongly suspect I’ll be experiencing a major med change as soon as I call and make an appointment.
~~~
I swear, R, I would rather be gone than put my kids through this when I get older. I put up with the physical and verbal abuse growing up so it would have been nice to have been given a little break after all I was put through. And despite going through it, I refuse to be a career victim. I can’t live like that and it’s very trying living with someone like that. She’s been like this as long as I remember and I’m sure it’s no shocker that I never had friends over. When I was on the phone she would pick up the other end, listen in and start arguing with my friends. !!
~~~
S: Oh man Annie. I cannot even imagine. Are there resources available to get her out of your hair for awhile for a few hours a week? Senior citizen centers or adult daycare? If she is already this bad you have to find ways to get a break from her on a regular basis. She’ll end up making you sick.
She will never leave the house unless it’s with me or my brother. She’s been invited numerous times to my in-laws for holidays and she never comes. She always has an excuse. It’s just as well because she’d end up saying or doing something that would make me want to crawl under a rock. Today while Iz was at school I went to the old house to clean and gather some stuff that still needs to be moved out. I wasn’t about to go home. Then Iz and I went to Dunkin Donuts and had a donut and I had some coffee before we came home. I have a feeling I’m going to be gone from the house more than I used to be. I know it sounds crazy but I looked in the mirror this week and look like I’ve aged 10 years.
~~~
S: With my BIL’s mom it was Avon. Boxes and boxes piled up in every room in the house. There was no room to walk anywhere. She knew it was out of control and still refused to part with any of it. They finally just took from her and sold it all on ebay to pay off her credit card bills. Now she is back to buying again. : (
I’ll block out QVC from the satellite if she dares buy anything again. I should tonight just to be preemptive. I can tell you about seven vacuums off the top of my head that she currently owns. Some are quite old and others are new this year (one in the last month never used). I’ve found literally stacks of QVC receipts as I’ve been going through the clutter. She made it sound like most of her debt was from simply living but living doesn’t include out of control spending on things that you will never use or even open. I made something in the crockpot yesterday and she said it was good. She commented that she always wanted to make something in the slow cooker but since she was alone she never did. I very nicely acted surprised and said I was surprised because she owns three (that I know of off hand that have never been taken out of the box). Thankfully she didn’t take that as a slam.
~~~
J: I know you said she has always been difficult but I am really hoping that she calms down somewhat after settling in. I cannot imagine what you are feeling right now. Take care of you and the kids, you are in my thoughts.
Thanks, J. I hope it settles in time. I’m going to tell myself that it will. I’ve been giving my kids extra patience and hugs and they’ve been doing the same. I have never loved my kids as much as I do right now. They were acting up but they were also really bored on break and a lot of their stuff is still packed until I can get it in but they’ve been there for me as much as I’ve been there for them. They hug me and give me kisses when they see I’m feeling down and tell me to just ignore her when she gets in a mood. Aren’t kids something? They actually hear me when I tell them to ignore one of their siblings when they are bothering them on purpose. They don’t do it but they do hear me I guess. Heh.
~~~
R: When my parents had to clean out my grandmother’s stuff, they found hefty garbage bags full of squeaky clean plastic frosting cups. Because you never know when there might be a good frostin cup craft, and you don’t want to be without frosting cups. And a 5 lb coffee can full of twist ties from bread. And a drawer full of clipped UPC symbols because long ago there was a girl who needed chemo and some company offered to donate money for UPC symbols that were turned in. And maybe that might happen again someday, so might as well have a drawer full ready.
That made me laugh because that? That was my dad. I’m not sure what happened to the stuff but at one point the steel file cabinets were filled with little collections of things. All the extension cords were together (ancient ones at that). Then there were baggies full of rubber bands sorted by size, fuses (we didn’t have fuses in this house — they were from the last house), little promotional pocket knives from their store, pink erasers, pens etc., etc. My mother is completely the opposite. You open any drawer and what you will find (or would have before I cleaned them out) would be coins, receipts, some of those pocket knives, sewing needles (yeah, that hurts), junk mail from a decade and a half to two decades ago, paper clips, used paper towel, old knee-hi nylons and I can’t tell you what else. She’s very clean and on the surface it doesn’t seem quite so bad at first glance. Then you open a drawer and recoil in horror. She also likes to buy totes and then they get filled up with the same kind of junk and they collect around the house until it becomes sort of an obstacle course and you feel the walls closing in.
~~~
So there’s today’s installment of the venting I did when I was trapped in the fluorescent cave of hell. It really was a depressing atmosphere down there. There were nothing but long tube fluorescent lights so it reminded me of the office scenes in Joe Versus the Volcano. These were not the color corrected, soft light, reading type lights. We’re talking the evil, dingy, bluish-tinged, depressing veil of office hell kind. Many were burned out or flickering despite the fact that we replaced the ones that were burned out not long before we moved in. It was dark and dusty and because I wasn’t yet done with dealing with the mold and whatnot, there was also the lovely scent of mildew and stale air. I do not know how my brother and his girlfriend lived like that down there for so long. Well, my brother left the basement every day to go to work but I don’t know how his girlfriend made it that long without wanting to kill herself. I guess free rent makes everything more palatable. No thanks. Oh, and if you’re wondering, no, whe haven’t spoken since the day we moved out.
Very sad you had to go through all this.
