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 �what is Man? a miserable little pile of secrets.� - andr� malraux "i desire to live in peace and to continue the life i have begun under the motto, to live well you must live unseen." - rene descartes note random entry image credit design by : ilazarn ikmal powered by : diaryland |
why is she like this.
2019-04-18 @ 9:32 p.m.
i'm writing again today because i can do whatever i want! i just wanted to expand some on my mother. so like, i know i never wrote in detail about this but i keep alluding to it, and once again it's such a long story that i still won't get into it now, but the super condensed version of the situation with my brother and SIL is that she did something pretty extremely wrong, and my brother was upset about it on the phone and via text with me, but apparently in real life with SIL he was acting like an absolute psycho, so much so that SIL was afraid and was 100% ready for divorce. this started a lot of family drama because they just moved into their house in the end of january, which was financed in large part by my parents (there was infighting between them because my mom was pushing to do this and inserted herself into the process (just like she did with me) and my stepdad didn't want her to do it). so it was like, who is going to be on the hook for this now? who is the one who would have to move? we have this REALLY expensive vacation already booked, flights and passports and everything in a few months. it was really fucked up. so they were both doing bad things, but my brother was the real problem. like me, he has mental health issues, but he is an addict. doesn't matter what, he's doing some substance. but his alcoholism was really extreme. like, my family all saw this and the way he was carrying on, but since "we don't talk about anything," of course asshole tinea was the only one who was like hey, guys? anyone else think that brother drinks too much? like a lot too much? and everyone was just like yeah, whatever, that's just your brother! dude, he would wake up at like 8 fucking am, fill a 32oz cold cup with jack and coke, then chug that and make another and take it into his car and drive to work. shit was fucking crazy to me and people would literally grab my fucking sleeve at holidays and say "don't mention your brother's drinking in front of so and so." the fuck? okay, so again, condensed version is that this was ruining his relationship because apparently behind the scenes he was lying to all of us about pretty much everything. almost every time he and SIL had a fight and shit was going bad, it was because he was being drunk and belligerent and DMing randos on insta. he was blowing like all of their money on booze and video games and blaming it on her when she bought something. so when all of this came to a head, my brother promised he was going to quit drinking and go to therapy too (SIL just started it recently because she knew she needed it but i also hope my suggestions had a little to do with it), which he followed through on. he went into it hardcore, like i did. he really loves SIL and knew he was fucking up but she always let him get away with it so he never had a reason to stop. in therapy she learned how to put her foot down, and that's so cool. so i mentioned a few other times how he finally acknowledged that our parents were shitty and fucked him up too, and that's been really nice. and i know i've mentioned over the years that my mother is just the fucking worst. the thing about her is, she's so sneaky and manipulative and insidious about it. it's so hard to describe why she is the worst because some of the things she does will look to a neutral party to be innocuous. kind and generous, even. but the neutral party doesn't understand that looks can be deceiving, and this is part of a larger unsaid plan. she is a person who will straight-faced deny objective reality to her fucking grave. there are incidents that my brother, my stepdad, and i all sat there and witnessed with my mother and we will bring it up and she will deny that it happened. and she is NOT joking. and we're like, are you seriously sitting there and saying that something that we, all four of us, witnessed with our eyes and heard with our ears, never happened?? and she, completely stone-faced, will say, "yes." there are at least five examples of this that i can think of in the past year alone. it's truly amazing. you feel like you are fucking crazy talking to a person like this. okay? so back to my brother and therapy. he tells me that he goes and mentions it to my mom, so she wants to talk to him to hear how it went. he said he's telling her and one of the first things she asks is "did you talk about me?" but all fucking edgy about it. so he said "yeah, okay. i guess we're doing this." HAHAHAHA. love this guy. so he says he starts telling her how her simultaneous smothering and neglect of him throughout our childhood really sucked, and the constant criticism and berating and being told that he was disappointing her made him feel like he needed constant attention and stimulation and validation as an adult. and because we still never fucking talk about anything, he never talked about anything going on with himself, and turned it all inward. he said she immediately started blaming it on our father and really deflected and didn't address any of the things he said except that maybe she could have worked less. so he said he was going to start antidepressants because there's kind of a lot of heavy shit going on right now and he wants to really earnestly embrace the therapy and healing process. she the starts getting mad at him for "doing drugs" and telling him he really doesn't even need therapy, essentially he needed to just pull himself up by his bootstraps and admit he was a bad person who did this all to himself and go all out and do some dramatic romantic thing for SIL and all of this would blow over. brother was like errrr .... no thanks, i really want to do this my own way and follow my dr. and therapist's advice. and he said she started fucking arguing with him about it, and how she's a woman and KNOWS women and the way he's going about this was sure to fail because he starts things all the time and never follows through. i was like WHAT! number one, i never knew she did and said this kind of manipulative crazy shit to him too, because "we never talk about anything." but number two, what the fuck!? your CHILD is about to lose their fucking marriage and everything important to him, not to mention his fucking LIFE because he's drinking a half gallon of fucking whisky every day, and you're going to advise him to stop doing it and do some fucking romance movie plot instead because he always fails at everything? jesus christ. i was so disturbed by that conversation, man. holy shit, why is she like this. why is she like this! that was like 2 weeks ago. so like i said, she and my stepdad went down to visit my brother and buy him a lawnmower this weekend that just passed. SIL had made some prior plans to visit out of state friends so she wasn't home. so finally this morning i talk to my brother about this visit. he says after my parents get there, he's outside with my stepdad talking about grass for a little while, and he goes back in for something to find that my mom is in the process of cleaning and reorganizing his house. he's like uh, no, please stop. and she didn't want to stop. and then he says more firmly, mom, this is my house and this is my stuff, and it's also SIL's stuff, and we put it where we wanted it to be. i cleaned before you came. stop. and she's like, well no one could tell you cleaned so i'm doing it, this place is disgusting. and he said he actually had to stand there and argue with her to stop because he's not trying to have a bad day but she's being ridiculous. so then they go to the store to get this stuff and the whole time she's loudly commenting that he's so useless and probably has no idea how to even use this yard equipment or cut a lawn. he said she was like relentlessly trying to engage the cashier in mocking him for his inexperience doing outdoor work. he was like mom, when i lived with dad i took care of the yard and the garden with him. but my mom being my mom just waved him off and nodded condescendingly and talked over him. he said he was so upset, like just trying to keep it cool because what an asshole kid he would be for saying something to someone who's spending $500 on him. this is how it is with her and my stepdad. their favorite strategy is to impose a gift on you then demand you accept it on their terms and subjugate yourself to them for the indefinite future. he said they came back from the store and they're at the table, my parents eating (my parents wanted to eat, got fast food and asked him if he wanted any but he said no because he had just eaten before they arrived, and he doesn't eat fast food. they return with food for him anyway and try to make him feel bad for wasting it). so he's telling them about his program where he can counsel people, and this has always been a career interest for him but he never got to really do it because he was first really deep in his addiction, then later because he needed to work to stay afloat so he started with his current career and just stuck with it because he's good at it. he learned through his therapist that he could do this part time and work his way up in the next couple of years through their program and make it a career, if he wanted. he was saying he's really interested because he's always wanted to do counseling tor teaching or something like that. and my mom seriously tells him that's a stupid idea, and that he should instead go back to school to do this cert program that will guarantee him a $10 raise in the place he's working now in two years. and he's like why the fuck would i do that when i've said many times that i really don't like this job? and my mom just starts going in on him, telling him that he always has these wacky ideas and never follows through and needs to just pick something and stick with it for the money even if he hates it because it's time to grow up now. and then she said, look at you, you can't even solve your own problems so why would you think you could help someone else? he was like WHOA. wow. she is absolutely unbelievable. so he said this weekend of what was supposed to just be a pleasant little visit left him so fucking upset that when SIL came back from her trip she thought he was upset with her for going away (this was a point of contention in their relationship). then, since they're communicating now, he calmly explained to her how shitty my mom was for absolutely no reason and how upset it made him. i hated to hear about this, but like i keep saying, i thought it was just me. i thought she only did this to me, that all these years i was the shitty one, but no. she wanted to crush us both. for the first time, i heard my brother say he was angry with her. he was always the one to make excuses for her and apologize for her. oh, well, you know how she is. yeah, i do, but that doesn't make it OKAY and we shouldn't go on letting her think it is. no, this time he said, the way she was trying to manipulate him and play the victim in all this and turn it around to relate to her and my stepdad's relationship was "sickening." for the first time, real words. hard words for her. and then he said that it was fucked up the way she was treating him in the store because she knew he would keep his mouth shut and act appreciative. that the $500 was her trump card. and i was like yeah, it really is. it always has been. that's why i let everything go. i wanted to just flee like a thief in the night. start fresh, owe nothing and no one, not indentured to her for her "favors." and for the past year, it has been absolutely amazing. for the first time in my life i exist completely independently of her and there's nothing she can do about any of my decisions. it's so exciting to talk to brother and be validated and be able to share this craziness with each other. it's like this dark secret we've been keeping for 30 years is finally coming to light. he and i have both spent so many years thinking we were these huge pieces of shit but it turns out we were only human, doing our best. shit. it's getting hot again rapidly and my living room fan is really old and literally falling apart. the back of it is duct taped together and a whole row of the blades don't work so air only comes out of the top and bottom halves of it. it's time to retire it, so i decided to order another one before next week comes because it's supposed to be really warm and i can't turn on the AC yet. it's only april. it's the principle. so i had to pay rent this week and i budgeted myself really really tightly and didn't have an extra $65 for a new fan. i decided to do some after hours filing to make it up to myself next week and ordered it anyway because i'm not trying to sweat for the next 7 days. when i went in today, boss said hey i have an account at x bank that has one of those coin counters. can you do some deposits and cash this big thing of change? i said sure, and at the last second thought to grab my own change bank and all of the change from my car. i cash it in and guess what? $65. the universe smiles upon me. so everything is great, hanging out with cat, boss left early to take his dad to the doctor because he said his foot was looking really gnarly so i had time to clean out my car before the sun set, came home and wrote all this out and now am ready to snuggle up in my bed and read until the hurricane hits. we're supposed to have some crazy weather tomorrow but i wish i would rain while i'm asleep instead. i haven't had a nice rainy morning sleep in a while, but i'd certainly welcome one. okay goodnight, it's so late. i didn't mean to spend all night on this but i had to get it out. it felt great. my brother is feeling better. his relationship is better. everything is getting better for all of us. who would have believed this two years ago? |