One of my favorite bands made this song and it really gets me every time I hear it.  Story of my childhood and teenage years.  She'd completely given up on the notion of leaving him by my teenage years though.  Content to live within the chaos.  Content to place the blame on me, instead of him.  

 In 2018, just two years ago, after we came back from being homeless and having to break no contact, my mother said that "Your father drank because he had to put up with you."  

It's so hard not to be angry at that.  At any of it.  At all of it.

Fight for me

We can leave him 

Begging please

On my on my knees......

Have I talked about this before?  I am not sure.  Maybe?  If so, sorry about that.  But my mother has an issue with locked doors.  When we moved in, the bathrooms didn't lock and my son immediately took the one doorknob in the house with a lock on it and traded it with the bathroom's.  He likes his privacy.  As do I.  

But mother hates privacy.  She thinks she has the right to do whatever she likes whenever she likes, and fuck if you don't like it.  Granted, that bit has calmed down some since we moved in together, but still, I had to live my entire life with her thinking she had every right to my space.  Even when we lived in separate houses!  At my first apartment, she'd barge right in and walk around and tell me what to do with my own house and then scream and complain about how messy it was and how dishes needed to be done and blah blah blah.  I had a new baby back then, my first, and I wasn't in any position to be doing anything other than trying to figure out this little human and meeting his needs.  I have ADHD (though I'm not hyper, so I have ADD, but the term is ADHD no matter whether you have inattentive or hyperactive) and it was hard enough just trying to keep my mind on one thing: my son.  And I was a kid.  When I didn't do what she said, she'd get belligerent and start berating me, saying that "I guess you don't care if your house burns down and your child dies!" and shit like that (that one was because I had a very lightweight couch over our forced heating vent, even though there was a large gap between the couch and the floor).  

As a child, she kept a metal skewer above the bathroom door so she could pop the lock anytime she wanted.  I had a nightmare I was in the bathroom and a monster tried to shove the door open and I had to hold it shut.  The next day, I was peeing and my mother tried to open the door on me and I immediately jumped and shoved my body up against the door, thinking my dream was coming true.  And it kind of was, because most of the time, she was a monster.  It became a shoving match, as though she HAD to get into the bathroom, even though I was using it.  

As a teen I installed a lock on my door that you needed a key to open it with.  No more popping locks with a skewer!  Ha!  So she removed my doorknob completely.  And I subsequently moved my bedroom down the basement.  I then removed the door from our laundry room and placed it on my room and then bought another locking doorknob and installed it.  They left me alone after that.  

As an adult, I moved back home after I left my ex-husband (he wasn't my ex at the time though) and I had my old upstairs bedroom as my room.  At first, the kids had my childhood bedroom, which eventually became our "guest bedroom", but later, they moved into my room, because they were terrified sleeping alone in a room they weren't familiar with.  They were 3 and 6.  So, once, I locked the door (they reinstalled that old doorknob they stole from me after I moved my room) because of some reason, not sure why (I was either on the phone and didn't want to be disturbed or was getting dressed, or something) and my mother tried to open the door and couldn't.  She threw the biggest fit about "no locked doors in MY house!" and I said I was almost thirty, I could do what I want.  After that, I locked it quite frequently because I was too old to have her invade my privacy for any (and no) reason whatsoever.  

When we moved in, she had a fit about my son changing the doorknobs because "Oh god, why do you guys need to lock the bathroom doors?? (eyeroll)".  I said because unlike you, we all like privacy.  

So recently, I got a new doorknob for my bedroom.  As mine had no lock and it made your hands smell like metal every time you touched it.  Gross.  So I tried to install it quietly, but this house is older and the knobs were original so the holes didn't match up to the new knobs.  So I had to drill the fuck out of the hold to get it to fit and make a huge show about it.  I didn't even want her to know it was done, as she opens my door quite frequently without knocking (and at other times, opens it with LOUD knocking to make my dogs bark while I have a migraine, she's so sweet and considerate).  So now I have a lock on my door and I don't think she knows about it, but I am excited to have her try to open it sometime and have it just not turn and see how she reacts.  I would laugh really hard if she actually got angry.  Though I think we're at the point that she would be just like "Oh" and knock instead.  But you never know.  

Once, she asked me for a key to my old house (we used to live a block away from her in a big house at the top of our block).  I had to stifle my giggles.  I said "Sure!  I'll try to remember to make a copy".  But I never did and kept saying that every time she asked.  Eventually, she stopped asking.  I knew damn well what would happen if she had a key to my house.  And that was never going to happen.  And now look...she not only has a key to my house but lives in the bedroom next door LOL  Yay!  But I keep putting up my boundaries when she crosses them and I remind her that they are there.  And it's working, to a point.  It helps that she's feeble, because she knows she needs me and that I do most everything for her (though today she's cooking dinner...except not for me because I hate pork and I still have to cook for myself, the one time she decides to cook...though it's not like anyone wants her to, she can't smell or taste anything and always over salts the food or makes it taste off in some way, shape, or form) so she can't treat me outrightly like total crap, because if we move out for any reason, she'd be royally screwed with a mortgage she couldn't afford.  We'd never ever do that, but in her mind, she thinks that's an option, so she has to play nice as much as she can.  Which is a good thing.

My mom used to collect keys.  Which I don't get, because she hates locks.  Maybe by owning the keys she had control over the lock?  I have no idea.  At my first apartment, the one my mother used to barge into on a regular basis, had doors with skeleton keys and locks.  Nobody had a key though and our one door was permanently locked since my grandmother lived there.  Then, at a flea market, I found a whole set of skeleton keys and bought them.  And lo and behold, one of the keys fit our locks!  And then when I moved, many, many years later to the house a block away from her, I found another set of skeleton keys at a flea market and one of those keys fit our doors in that house.  I love locks.  I love keys.  And I love to have the ability to lock my doors.  There's something to be said about the security you get from locking a door to keep unwanted people out of your domain, whether it be your entire house, the bathroom, or your bedroom.  And growing up without an once of safety, locked doors were the one thing that could make me feel safe.  

Not my mother.  When I was growing up, she refused to even shut the back door and left it open so any vagrant could just come in and rape and kill us.  When I was really young, we only had one car for awhile and my mother used to drive my father to work at three in the morning, and I'd wake up and wander around looking for her, only to find the back door wide open.  I'd run to my room and hide in my closet until she got home, terrified of people abducting me or hurting me (which was a real thing that actually happened to people, something my mother refused to acknowledge).  Back then, she made me watch two movies with her regularly: Kramer vs. Kramer and Without a Trace.  So I was well-versed on divorce and child abduction.  And yet she still left that fucking back door wide open all day and all night.  I actually have no idea why we even had a back door.  Why not remove it?

And she used to berate for me shutting and locking it when I moved back in with her as an adult, too.  I used to also shut our picture window (we had the largest picture window in town) to the forest preserve across the street when we'd (my kids and I) slept in the living room (which we did every single day).  She used to get angry at me for doing that, too.  But anyone could be out there.  And I wasn't keen on having them watch me and my kids at night, thank you very much.  I had constant nightmares about this, from childhood to adulthood, all while living in that house.  All because my mother refused to not only not respect my privacy, but also refusing to keep our family safe from people outside who may have wanted to hurt us.  Boy, house burglars and rapists and serial killers sure missed out on an opportunity with my family back then.  They could have just walked into the back door and done whatever they liked.  Well, before my childhood dog ripped them a part.  But our second (and much bigger) dog that I had a teenager would have just licked them.  And we'd all have been dead meat.  I mean, my dad was like 5'6, 130lbs, what was he going to do?  And we weren't protected with any weapons at all.  

Now?  Our house has weapons stashed in every corner of the house.  I mean like maces and shit (our kids are into medieval weaponry).  Though we also have four big dogs and we all know how to handle guns (even though with SPD I hate shooting them...though my oldest also has SPD and he also used to hate the noise, too, and everything about shooting, but he said he just had to keep doing it, and eventually, it became easy and now he loves it...so I guess if I just pushed past my issues I could eventually enjoy it too, or least tolerate it better).  And then there's the fact we are five grown ass adults, mostly men (I know, that's sexist, but if we were five women?  I'd feel a little less safe).  So I feel pretty safe.  I am not stupid, bad things can still happen, which is why we are smart about stuff (well, we, minus my mother).  

My issues with safety now are more about financial reasons (after being faced with homelessness, you really change your priorities on what's important in life and how you can keep your family safe with shelter and food).  And that's weighing heavily on us at the moment due to pandemic layoffs and getting around 30% of our pay.  It used to be 80%, what happened?  Oh yeah, our government pissing away money.  So our goal right now is to make enough money to start saving again and have enough to live on without fearing all the time for our safety.  

I feel that people who don't make safety a priority in life are, well, just playing a game of chance with their lives.  If you aren't prepared for losing your pay, losing your car, losing your ability to purchase food, or for personal safety?  You're just hanging on by a thread, hoping it doesn't break, whether you know it or not.  Just hoping something bad doesn't happen isn't enough.  Yes, it makes you feel comfortable, but it doesn't make you wise.  I know, I used to be that person due to the way I was raised.  My kids changed my outlook on life.  As did our life experiences.  We know what's it's like to have that thread snap and have everything come crashing down.  And by luck, we had a teeny tiny little safety net precariously perched at the bottom.  Had I had siblings?  I guarantee you that net would have been removed.  Had one tiny thing been any different at all, same thing.  It was pure luck.  And my willingness to push past my horrible fears of contacting her again.  And even so, it was still luck.  And I never want to feel like that again, to have my family's safety be in the hands of a person who hates us (though she doesn't hate us anymore...well, as much LOL).  

Safety is very important to me.  It isn't to her.  But my life isn't about her.  It's about my family.  It's about me.  And her safety is also important to me, even though she doesn't give two squats about protecting herself (which is why she's broken two bones this year).  But that's what I am here for.  To protect the crazy lady even when she can't protect herself.  Even when she didn't protect me.  But luckily, I am not her.  Something I am grateful for every single day.  

Let me give you some history on birthdays around our house.  Mother controls them as much as she possibly can, and now that she can't, she tries to ruin them in other ways.  And this almost goes for all parties she's involved with, not just birthdays.  Here are some examples:

• My baby shower for my second son (which is sort of a birthday party for their birth, right?).  She tried to take control of it and told me she'd throw me one, but then as it turned out, she didn't plan a single thing.  I had to take over and plan and buy everything.  "We don't need games, that's stupid." is what she said to me when I asked what games she planned.  She didn't even make plans to make food or do anything at all.  So I had to plan my own, which I don't think that's how it works, but it did for me.  And we all had loads of fun (I am a good party planner, btw).  
• Every birthday I ever had as a kid she ruined.  I am not even kidding here.  Her and my father would get wasted and start a fight with each other.  Sometimes even bringing my friends into it, or taking me out in public and humiliating me.  
• The only party that they didn't fuck up?  Was their 32nd anniversary, when I planned it all by myself when I was 12.  I had their friends bring beer (because they were all drunks and had beer on hand anyways) and I provided all the snacks (my friend's mother took me to store to get them).  And I send them to my grandparent's house and filled the house with around 30 of their friends and had them all hide their cars and not once did they even guess there was a party going on, until they came home to all the lights turned off.  Of course their friends were already drunk and one of them said something as they walked in and my parents almost called the police.  Then everyone screamed surprise and they both almost had heart attacks.  To this day, my mother will probably lie and say she knew about it the entire time or even helped me plan it (she LOVES to make up shit that never happened).  But neither of my parents had a clue and the party went amazingly well.  I was 12 and gave them something they never gave me: a party that went off without a hitch.  It was perfect.  Well perfect for a white trash anniversary party. 
• When I was turning 29, my birthday consisted of police escorts helping me getting my stuff out of my house because my mother went psychotic and hit me and tried to beat me more (but I ran away with my kids).  She knew my birthday was the next day so she had to fuck it up the only way she knew how: get drunk and beat your daughter.  It's so funny how much she pretends like she was never this trashy piece of crap chain smoking drunk who used to party every single weekend while nobody watched her kid.  Now she's all proper and shit and acts like everyone else is trashy.  Goodness.  She's still a chain smoker though.  So there's that. 
• Every single birthday for our family she takes us all out to dinner.  Her choice.  She pretends we have a choice but we always end up going somewhere she wants to go.  And usually, in the end, she just outright chooses.  The last time we went out, my husband wanted to go to Famous Dave's and she had a fucking fit.  We went out and she was being insane, screaming at us how to drive and stuff (to my husband, no less, which was so out of character for her) and then bitched the entire time and then on the way home yelled "You know what?!  From now on, I will pick the restaurant."  I replied "Then nobody will want to go anywhere, ma.  You never have to take us out again."  She loves Famous Dave's.  And it was cheaper than most places she wants to go.  But we all hate the places she picked and I pressed that for once, that my husband got to choose for himself.  And then my oldest son's birthday was next and we said "No thank you" when she asked where we wanted to go.  We finally broke the hold she had over us on our birthdays.  Nothing bad even happened at Famous Dave's, she was just being horrible.  And we never went out with her again.  And here's the kicker (as my father used to say), I hate going to eat.  And she knows this.  So that's the only reason she takes us out.  It's a direct combative move against me on her part.  Because once my son said to her "Why do you make mom go out to eat on her birthday?  You know she hates it?"  She replied "Because she can learn to like it."  I only ever agreed to go because it was a free meal for my family and I can't pass that up being poor as fuck.  And she knew this.  

Blustery.  Yes, that's the word that describes today perfectly.  It's very windy outside, dark and bleak, with a slight chill.  All the leaves are falling from the trees.  Typical October anymore: the leaves turn and then immediately fall before you can take pictures of them.  Today is laundry day.  Mother's laundry basket was by her door, filled with various items, such as clothes, underwear, and towels.  She won't keep her towels in the bathroom.  She doesn't keep much of anything of hers in there, preferring to keep her stuff in her room.  Which is odd, that her stuff isn't there but she insists on rearranging everything all the time.  So I had enough the other day and took everything of mine out of there and put it in my room.  Sounds childish, but I never can find my stuff, and I prefer that nobody puts my stuff anywhere but me.  She was surprised by this, but I had to do it.  And now the bathroom closet is pretty much bare.  Not sure what to do about that, but for now, this is the way it is.  

I woke up in extreme pain.  Not sure why.  I could barely move my upper body and it made me feel like I had a horrible migraine, though I don't.  It's just muscular.  But that doesn't make it any less painful.  This is me.  It's who I am.  The woman in pain most days.  Why?  I assume stress.  Maybe it's my ACEs catching up with me?  If I push myself too hard some days, I'll wake up hurting everywhere.  But sometimes I can push myself too hard and be in no pain at all.  Doesn't make any sense.  There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason to these cycles.  Maybe it's a fibro flare?  Maybe it's Sjogrens (something I suspect I have)?  I've been having massive dryness in my hands and feet and lips and mouth and getting frequent nosebleeds lately.  And I've also been hydrating.  But who knows.  Doctors are notorious for not diagnosing you properly for years on end, so we'll see what comes of that.  If anything.

I take her laundry basket, and she catches me and asks me to wait while she grabs her PJs to throw in.  She isn't allowed on the basement steps, as she can barely walk without falling normally.  It was a huge fight for so long, something that stressed me out unbelievably at the time.  She's quit now.  Especially since our staircase just recently broke and my oldest son almost fell through it.  So my husband and I just paid for it to be replaced yesterday.  Another strange issue is that all of these big issues keep happening and we keep paying for them and she never once reminds me to take half from her.  I mean I do, but it's just odd she's not reminding me that we are not expected to pay for these things all by ourselves.  Recently we had a tire blowout and had to get a new tire, and some thing in our engine needed to be replaced.  All of which we paid for.  I do not tell her "Hey, I'm talking half for this from you" because then she'll say "Well, I don't drive" or "I don't use the basement", as a joke, but I assume deep down she's being for real.  So I just take when I do the bills and she never says anything about it.  It's a strange situation to be in.  And she checks her bank regularly, so it's not like she doesn't realize it.  It still feels really odd.  

Even though I'm in pain and feel terrible (my allergies are causing me to feel like I have a cold, so I also feel very run down), I still do her laundry.  I still cook dinner practically every day (yesterday we had take out as I was busy all day).  I stock the fridge daily with her water bottles (she refuses to drink out of my Brita pitcher).  I shop for all groceries each week.  I run her errands.  I order her meds.  I make her doctor's appointments.  I fired her from washing dishes because I am constantly eating soap because she doesn't rinse them properly (she was really angry about that the other day).  I pay all the bills (not financially, we pay half, but I am the person who pays them each month).  I am always telling her no to her ideas, because her ideas are either gross or insane (her latest idea is to put a cat litter in her room, which will make the entire house smell like cat piss, and she doesn't care...even though my husband and I clean the cat litters in the basement and buy ALL the litter, even though she has five cats and we have two, and she has no reason to have a cat litter in her room, as they all use the basement litter).  I am basically her mother.  And that's how she treats me.  

Actually, she treats me as though I am a live-in worker.  I am not her family to her.  I am not her daughter.  I am the person in control who she has to ask to do things and throw a fit when I say no.  Today, she was pulling our lawn chairs up from the firepit, where my family sits around the fire, and I caught her and said "What are you doing?"  For one, she's already asked about getting the chairs, and I said leave them, that's where we sit.  And for two, she's not supposed to be walking through the backyard without support (there are lots of holes she can fall in and twist her ankles or break another rib) and she's especially not supposed to be traipsing through the backyard pulling furniture around.  She doesn't listen and does whatever she wants because she doesn't care about her own well-being (never has, never will).  So I have to be the one who catches her making stupid choices and tell her "Stop that."  And today, she screamed "FUCK IT!" after I said to leave it alone (in a nice tone, I do not yell at her) and left the chair in the middle of the yard.  

So yes.  Today is a blustery day.  

I've said it a hundred times, but she treats my husband like her family.  She treats my kids like her family.  But not me.  Never once has she asked me what I'm working on or what I'm up to.  She always asks my husband and kids what they're doing.  She'll go around, ask them, then when she gets to me, it's always a demand that I do something for her.  "Oh, yeah, don't forget, I need (insert something here)".  It's a blatant disregard for me, and she wants everyone to see it and know it.  Especially me.   

Another thing she's taken to doing is interrupting me.  Like mid-sentence.  She claims it's because if she doesn't say what she needs to say she'll forget.  Which is true.  But I'll restart what I'm saying and she'll interrupt again.  And when I look back at my old journals and blogs, I realize she's always done this.  It has nothing to do with her dementia as she claims it does.  And then there's the fact she doesn't interrupt anyone else.  Well, not as much as she does me anyways.  

I am working on changing my perception of her behavior from "Why are you such an asshole me, in particular?" to "What would I say say if this person had dementia?"  Because she does.  More so, I will stop when she says something that irks me and think "Pretend this comment is caused by dementia.  How should I respond?"  Even if the comment clearly isn't coming from that, it's my perception of the comment, remark, or action that matters.  Because right now, I take instant offense and it stresses me out.   So I need to stop letting her make me feel small and ashamed of myself and who I am.  Because that's her goal.  And I need to stop caring.  But it's easier said than done.  But I've changed my thinking many times in the past and eventually, I changed to the point I no longer thought the negative stuff anymore.  So I know I can do it now, too.  

Today's blustery weather is also laced with a slight bit of warmth.  It's a unique feeling, to see Mother Nature try her damnedest to make today suck, but something just isn't letting it completely through.  Something is taking the grossness of it all and making it slightly nice.  Nice enough to enjoy walking around barefoot (which is what I was doing earlier).  And that's what I'm trying to do here.  I can't make her nice to me.  I can't make her love me.  I can't make her treat me with respect or even kindness.  But I can change my attitude towards it all.  I can find compassion for myself enough to change how I take her bullshit.  

If I could only cure my pain and allergies.  But one thing at a time, right?  

UPDATE:  My pain turned into a massive migraine.  I was literally in bed all day.  My mother got upset with me for being sick and tried to guilt me about not being up at 6pm to make dinner for her.  "Can you go get my laundry from the basement?" she asks in a quiet and fake sad voice (really the voice was anger, but she loves to mask her anger and pretend she's sad so we feel bad for her, which never works).  "I'm just going to go to bed."  I said it's 6pm, isn't she going to eat?  She shrugs and says "Meh" and just walks away.  She opened my bedroom door earlier (I have a lock now, but I don't use it when I'm sick so I don't have to get up to open the door for anyone) to see if I was sleeping because her TV went out (she has a Fire Stick and I have a Flex, both our TV's went out at the same time) and this upset her to see I was sleeping because she wanted to watch TV.  The funny part is that five adults live in this house.  But somehow, I am the live-in servant and she can only ask me to do these things for her.  I never take naps (she takes like three a day) so obviously I was sick.  But zero compassion for me at all, per usual.  If it was anyone else she'd be all like "Oh I am so sorry you don't feel well!"  So I got her laundry and put it by her door and went back to bed, because now my head was excruciatingly horrible from climbing stairs during a migraine.  So I tried to do what I said above, to see her as "someone with dementia" and not someone who should have compassion for me, but it did not work and I was pissed as hell, which made my headache worse.  Hubby went to Little Cesear's for dinner, because I could not cook and she was perky and awake when she found out dinner was there.  So sweet.  Then she complained that I got to eat in my room and blah blah blah and I was just trying to stay present and not dwell on her crap so I could feel better.  

Anyways, so the kids (I say kids, but I mean my kids who are adults LOL) restarted the internet, my TV started working, then my youngest son went and fixed her TV (restarted her Fire Stick) and all was well with that.  Then she was happy and not trying to guilt me anymore, but damn if I could just detach from her behavior and not take her shit personally.  Because it's so much easier said than done.  Especially when I am really feeling HORRIBLE and she's being a bitch about not getting what she wants because of it.  Like, how dare I be sick??  She needs shit done!  

If I learned one thing from my therapist, it's to stand up for myself when I have had enough, rather than be quiet.  Because this is my life and I don't have to spend it being pissed or depressed just because she wants to be mean to me.  So next time my hubby has a migraine and she acts all compassionate (which is fake) to him about it, I may speak up to her and say "Oh wow, you sure mother him nicely.  Too bad you don't do the same for me."  Maybe I'll say that.  Maybe.