My mother only loves or likes being around me when she doesn't have someone better.  When my father was alive, he was that person.  And when her second husband was alive, he was that person.  When he was around, I didn't exist.  When I was around when he was there, I was a nuisance.  She always has chose everyone over me.  When she had nobody else, I was her BFF.  We'd laugh sometimes until our sides hurt. There was always an underlying judgement, though.  I just had to say the wrong thing, something she could judge me for and she'd stop and give me "that look".  Oops, took it too far.  So I was never completely safe with her.  But she'd reel me in with promises of love and fun and happiness and "girl talk" and whatever.  And in the next moment, let someone else call and ask her to hang out and off she went.  The next door neighbor would call her over and she'd say "I'm going over there, you stay here.  I need time away from you."  She didn't want me to invade on her "me time".  She treated me like I was her package deal, but then when she got someone else better to be with, she was a package of one.  She created a codependency with her this way.  I was strung along for as long as it suited her.  And left behind when it also suited her.  

If she was alone, she lured me in to be her cohort.  She only chose to leave me behind over someone else.  Even though she bragged about being in the "peace and quiet" (she'd put her finger to her lips, close her eyes and say "Do you hear that?  That's what I crave.").  But she's the loudest person I know.  I actually crave peace a quiet, but she's always yakking her mouth.  

Now she can't understand why I choose myself over her.  This just boggles her mind.  So she makes up reasons as to why I love being alone (I do not love being alone, btw, I love being without her...I would always pick my kids or hubby over alone time, being alone usually gives me anxiety--but I will chose that over being with her any moment of the day).  She pretends I am always sleeping.  Or maybe I'm depressed?  I mean, nobody could fathom being alone without being depressed, right?  

She is depressed.  She is alone a lot.  And she HATES it.  The other day, what I talked about in my last post, about her being the phone, she said where I could hear her (and she knew I could hear her) "I miss everyone over there, I sometimes look around here and wonder why I did this" meaning choosing to live here with us.  And I know why she said it.  She's got hardly anyone to talk to.  But back in her old house she complained about having too many people to talk to.  She hated it.  But she did go from one extreme to another.  I mean, not at first.  This has been gradual, me backing off and retreating to my own space.  But she caused it.  At first, I felt like this was my house.  Then, pretty quickly, I realized I was a guest in my own home and the only place I had any sort of privacy at all, was in my own room.  So I quickly went from hanging out wherever I liked to being pushed into a box.  And now, it's my safe space.  And I do all my work in here.  

Anyways, as I was saying though, she hates being alone and cannot fathom that I enjoy being alone more than I enjoy listening to her nonsense (do this, do that, why don't you do this, why don't you do that, you could do this, you could do that, etc. etc. etc.--it's CONSTANT!).  And now she's regretting moving here.  Well, welcome to the club, crazy old woman.  I've been regretting this for a long, long time. Though I will say, my dogs are loving their half acre fenced in yard to run in.  So I am glad they have that, rather than living in a second-floor apartment building with a dangerous flight of stairs for them to run up and down fifty times a day.  

So before when we first moved in, my husband, Mr. Brooks, worked a great schedule.  3 days on, four days off, four days on, three days off.  He was an ambulance dispatcher and his hours were freaking amazing!  And she was used to me and him hanging out on those days (even though she always tried to monopolize his time, because, as we joke, she treats him like he's her husband, not mine).  Then he was laid off for six months due to the pandemic, and we were always together.  But now that he works 2nd shift and is gone all day, she thinks I should be hanging out with her at dinner and doing all this stuff for her and she can't fathom what I do in my room all damn day.  

And I always, always feel guilty about it.  But I am just so freaking angry that I do what I need to do for her, and most of the time, I do not take it any further.  Sometimes I do.  And sometimes it's okay.  But most of the time I instantly regret it.  She will use any niceness from me as an "in" to get something she wants that we can't afford or that we don't want to do or whatever.  It's nothing she needs, it's just busywork she wants, because she loves to control everyone's time around her.  "I hate asking for help!" And she won't.  She will hurt herself before she asks for help (which is what she does so she can yell at you later for not helping her--which is why I have to keep an eye on her).  But she sure will boss you around and tell you do some busywork.  

Though as I sit here and think about all the years she rejected me with her time and her love and whatever, I wonder why I feel guilty.  I don't like she's sad about being alone so much.  But she does have friends she can call on the phone.  Hell, they can come visit if they want (but they don't).  But I am not her entertainer.  I am not put on this earth for her to be entertained.  She sees me that way.  She see us all that way.  She will walk into a room while we're watching a movie (quite regularly) and start being super loud and talking to us without asking us first to pause it, knowing she's monopolizing our time even though our time is already being spent doing something else.  She does this daily (when we have the TV on).  She can't just say "Oh excuse me" or anything like that.  She's just all "BLAH BLAH BLAH" and we have to pause it and say "What, we couldn't hear you because we were listening to our movie."  Sometimes it'll make her angry and she'll leave.  Sometimes she'll just keep talking or act like she didn't know we were watching something (which is insane, because we have surround sound and it's pretty loud).  

But she wouldn't want me right right if she had a better offer on the table.  If her old friend Horny Skeletor was here or one of my idiot cousins or a neighbor.  She could care less what I did with my time if she had other people to entertain her.  But she doesn't, so she's depressed, and I'm made to feel like it's my fault.  But then again, I'm letting myself take the blame, even though I do not owe her one damn thing.  She's lucky I am here cooking for her every single day and doing her laundry and doling out her pills, etc.  She's lucky I ever spoke to her again.  But she doesn't see it that way.  She still thinks all people are here to entertain her and when we don't, we must not be doing anything interesting with our time because people who like being alone must be insane!  

Today, she came into the house from the back.  I was busy peeing.  Not in the back, but in one of our bathrooms and I could hear her bitching at my kids.  She was complaining there was a single bowl in the sink that wasn't washed out.  They were watching something on TV together and she was interrupting and they were ignoring her.  My oldest answered "Okay grandma" and she kept on and I tried to make myself stop peeing so I could tell her to hush, but I finished and heard her saying "See?  This is all you have to do!  Just turn the faucet on and pour water into it!" and she was doing what she said.  So I yelled "Ma, shut the water off!  Mr. Brooks is in the shower!"  And he was, that was no lie, but then she said "Oh no!" and went to her room because she felt stupid for having bitched at the kids (adults) for not washing something out when they couldn't.  And all day, she ignored everyone.  Which was okay.  But still, it's like, she can have normal conversations (mostly) because I hear her talking to my idiot cousins or her friends and she talks like a semi-normal person (as normal as you can get for someone who wants to control the other person on the phone).  But to us, it's always do this, do that, why didn't you do this, why didn't you do that, now I'm using my baby voice, now I'm talking like a person with a southern accent, now I'm meowing like a cat, etc. etc. etc.  She's legit insane.  And she wonders why we avoid her as much as we can.  

I am studying about IFS (internal family systems) right now.  It's a branch of psychology that's different than traditional psychology that to me, makes way more sense than anything (though it all makes sense to me, I love psychology) I've read before.  And I get that this stupid shit she does are all coping mechanisms meant to protect her.  And I get that NPD is just a cluster of really really stupid coping mechanisms also meant to protect the person doing it (even though they hurt others while doing so) due to a break in their maturity level (which seems to be due to their brains being fucked while developing before they were born).  Like they can't mature past a certain level and so rather than acting like an adult, they act like little toddlers and schoolchildren and are literally stuck with the brain of a child in the bodies and life experiences of an adult (in her case, a really old adult).  So I get it.  

But that doesn't mean that I can deal with this bullshit on a daily basis.  I didn't have three children.  I gave birth to two kids.  That's all I signed up for.  Your parent is not supposed to act like this.  Your parent is supposed to be a grown up.  But how many grown ups do we really know?  I don't know many.  So I get this isn't just her problem.  And I get that most adults have ZERO idea of how to be real adults.  And I get that NPD is rampant in our world.  Which is why I don't really have friends and don't really push myself to seek out any.  So me hiding out in my room most days (or in the garden) is me seeking fucking peace in a world full of chaos.  And I know she feels bad and I wish I could make her feel better, but at the same time, when she feels better, guess what?  She's mean.  She's cruel.  She's terrible.  When she feels good, she picks on me.  So in order for me to feel good, she has to feel bad.  Or in order for her to feel good, I have to feel bad.  But when I feel good, I feel bad, because I know it makes her feel bad.  So no matter what, I lose.

What kind of fucked up shit is that? 

Though, when I choose my own happiness, at least I get more happiness than when I choose hers.  

I am dreading my birthday.  It's coming and she's prolly gonna fuck it up, like she always does.  But this time I am not expecting to have her be on her best behavior.  So I won't be let down by her.  I will expect her to be bad.  So if she's good, I will be surprised.  But then again, I'll probably just be annoyed anyways, like usual, because thinking about her being stupid puts me in a bad mood.  

Which is SO not fair to my family (or me).  So maybe I'll just expect good to happen and put myself in a good mindset and even if she does something bad, I'll just ignore it.  I can do that.  I've done it before.  I'm no spring chicken, so I need all the good birthdays I can get! LOL  

So, my entire point is, I am choosing my own happiness.  I am not here to entertain the child that is my mother.  She has lived a life full of conversations and other people and drinking until the sun comes up and partying and doing whatever she likes, whenever she likes, usually without me.  So why now is it my responsibility to make her life entertaining?  I am hoping she will get so sick of living here she'll ask me to go into assisted living so she can have friends.  And I will gladly put her there.  Not just for me (though it would be grand for me), but so she can continue having the life she's accustomed to.  

So we'll see what the future brings, but at the same time, I will be taking charge as much as I can by saving as much money as we can as well as building my business and keeping on creating things to make my family the money we need to move forward in life.  Rather than just thinking about her toxic behavior.  Also, I will be asking her friend to stop by regularly so they can sit outside and chat.  In fact, I'm going to call her now and see if she will.  

In this pandemic, it's been all on me and my hubby to take care of ALL her needs.  And now I need to call in some outside help because I cannot heal and move forward in life if she's always miserable and moping around the house and screaming at me (like she's been doing all week).  

It's a sort of win for both of us.  At least for now, until ma gets sick of her LOL