I am simply not an adult.  I am a child.  I feel like a moron most days.

I cannot make decisions on the fly, nor think of what I want to say in the moment.  I have to wait, assess, and come to a conclusion later, and then move forward.  When I am around people, alone or with my mom, that make me feel uncomfortable, I withdraw, like a little kid dumbfounded as to what to say.

I feel like an idiot.

I was never let to be an adult.  I always had to go along with her wherever we went.  I feel like how Naomi Judd looks when her mother comes into the room: confident and cool, and then slinking into myself when she's there.  She won't let me make decisions for her, as she's elderly and getting quite senile, but she still knows best.  Or she leads you to believe she does.  She'll be quick to make me look stupid in front of others: my intelligence, how late I sleep (though I tell her every day that I wake up early, she always says "Well, it was 10 a.m., I didn't want to wake you!"  Fuck you, I am always awake well before 10, but she wants to humiliate me, even when we're alone.

She thinks it's funny.  I do not.  And I tell her, and she says I am too sensitive and then makes a big HUGE deal out of it "Oh well, I guess I can't say anything at all, can I?  Hmmm...well, maybe I'll just never speak again if I can't even joke around with you."  Guilt.  Shame.  Both are her game.

But even privately, I can't be an adult.  I have no idea how mortgages work (even though I had one). I have no idea about much of anything when it comes to shit like that.  Is this just a generational thing?  I mean, I think there is a huge amount of people my age who rent and don't own shit.  We do own our car though, so that's something.  I never went to college.  I didn't do shit.  And my parents made sure of that, but mostly my mom.  Then she could go around and tell people "She didn't do shit with her life, I wonder why, she is so smart!"  But to me she's downing my ideas to further my life telling me how stupid it is, and how I could never do those things.  She made me totally dependent on her for everything, always needing her approval.  And even now, where I don't need her stupid approval anymore, I still can't shake this feeling about myself.

Because every single day, I am not the adult.  I am her child.  And I am treated as so.  I can't even adult on my own time because of this constant treatment.

Is it mean to say "Well she has dementia, it won't last forever"?  Because it's true.  My mom and I, we don't have a real relationship, it's all just a scripted game we play:  Niceties.  Funny sayings she says (that are not funny to me in the least, aka "I am running to the store"  "Oh honey, don't run, take the car"---do you know what it's like to hear that stupid joke 50 times a week??  Or when I was a kid, I'd ask her to pass the pepper, to which she would reply for YEARS after my dog's death "Oh Pepper's dead, honey."  What IS that??).  Talking about her cats.  If she EVER is being annoying, prying, and or getting bitchy, all I have to do is ask her her cats and then we're off on a hour conversation of all the funny things her several cats did that day.  Or she gossips about the neighbors while I just answer "Mmm hmmm."  Because if I reply, she will repeat what I say to everyone else.  So I learned to keep my mouth shut.

No matter how much time goes on, I can't break free from this hold she has on me to make me feel like a child.

Will I only feel better after she dies?  Or her dementia gets so bad she doesn't remember me?  Or will I never feel better?

Only time will tell.  And I honestly feel that I'll never fully feel like and adult.  Does anyone really ever?  Or are those who look like they have their shit together only faking it so we all think they are amazing?  I bet if held up a microscope to their lives, we'd see they only appear to have it together, and we may be more adult than they are different ways.

But still.  I'd like to stop feeling like a moron around other people.  And only I can do that for myself.