Today I had a bit of a meltdown.  Not outwardly, but inward, and at first, I couldn't place what I was feeling, but then it dawned on me.  I felt exactly like I did when were stuck in Buttdick, MO, being held hostage by my jackass (and evil) cousin.  Though living with her for three weeks was FAR worse than living with my mother, especially with the way she is now, but the feeling was there, nonetheless.  

Yesterday, I bought her a special root beer.  I got everyone else a cherry soda.  She then said "What, no cherry soda for me?" when I said I got her a root beer.  And then she refused to drink hers.  So today, I drank her root beer.  Then she knocked on my door this morning and asked for it.  Maybe she knew I drank it?  Maybe not.  But I went into immediate panic mode.  

Let me tell you right now, I know that this episode today was entirely my fault.  I just feared telling her I drank her soda, because I thought she wouldn't want it.  I didn't want to deal with listening to her play the victim and act like someone did something horrible to her over a stupid drink.  So I went into the kitchen and finished making my pot of chili I had started yesterday (I felt like horrible shit yesterday, so I couldn't cook) and all the while, she was in the kitchen being louder and louder and louder until I said "SHUSH!  You are so loud, please be quieter."  She then kept bugging me about getting in the garage to get her root beer and I said "I will have to find it for you", thinking that keeping her at bay will give me to figure it out (and it worked, thank goodness).  So she started getting louder again, this time singing at the top of her lungs.  My heart started racing and I said "Please!  Be quiet!  You are so loud!"  She said "Thanks," in her shitty voice.  Then I added  "Remember when I was a kid, and you'd tell me to listen, and I'd say to what, and you'd say to the silence.  Which is what you got when I was at school.  Now that I am getting old, I get what you mean.  I prefer a much quieter house."  She said "Remember when your son used to come to my house and talk about how he loved the peace and quiet there?"  I replied "Funny, how he's the loudest person in the house."  She laughed.  And then I added "But now you are.  Which is even funnier."  Gotcha. 

Oh she did not like that one bit.  And she put her on her angry face (like Mr. Potato Head and his "angry eyes") and said "Thanks" like she was an angry version of the snake in the first Harry Potter movie.  So she then picked up her cat, the one she was singing really loudly to and started singing again, but this time in a whisper, just to annoy me.  She WOULD.  NOT.  STOP.  And I kept getting more and more and more annoyed.  Until my heart was beating fast and I just wanted to escape.  Knowing she was trying to piss me off just because I POINTED OUT THE OBVIOUS (and it's insanely obvious she's NOISY AS FUCK) was just turning my insides out.  So I went to the bathroom and stayed there until she went into her room.  So then I went into my room, where I felt like there was a huge weight pressing down on my entire body, with adrenaline surging through it like mad.

My old therapist said "Just tell your mother to go away when you want space in a room to do something."  I always said that was so much easier said than done.  Even though I know her moods are not my responsibility, I am so severely hypervigilant that I take on other people's moods all the time.  I can't help it.  I know I need to build a barrier to protect myself from that, but I don't know how (yet).  So if I piss her off, I get pissed off.  But me telling her how noisy she is makes me feel better in the moment, and it makes it easier for me to tell her again next time.  But it does not change her behavior.  In fact, it usually makes it worse.  But holding it in makes me feel like I'm going insane, so I guess it's something I can just keep doing and if she gets really bad, I can point it out to her that she does this in purpose in order to make me yell at her.  Which usually will get her to stop.  At least for awhile.  

So I went out to the car, where I had more root beer stored (A&W Zero), opened one, and poured it into her special root beer bottle and put the cap back on (they are metal caps).  She can't taste anything, so she won't even notice it's the same root beer.  And that got me out of a situation where she can say I was some kind of asshole for drinking hers to begin with.  

But I put it out for her on her magazine that came in the mail, and she took the magazine and not the root beer.  Oh well.  It's in the fridge now so she can drink it whenever.  

But in my room, when I felt horrible, I started having one of those impending dread panic attacks that I had in Missouri for three weeks straight (when we were homeless), I kept thinking I can't do this anymore.  I can't live with her.  I need time to live my life without her in it on a regular basis.  I am forty-four years old and I can't keep living like this.  Too much of my god damned life has been taken up by her.  Too fucking much.  And I am so over it.  

So my panic attack came to its crescendo and I started really panicking and wondering what the hell am I going to do?  Negative thoughts started passing through my mind like crazy.  One being suicidal ideation.  I don't think about that all the time.  Just when I feel like everything is hopeless and I will never be able to escape one type of bullshit or another (a common theme in my life).  And I don't make plans, just "I think might be better off dead that deal with this shit anymore".  I never mean it, but in the moment it feels so real and I feel so very, very hopeless.  I can't work.  I don't have any friends.  I can't honestly see myself having friends in the future.  My kids are going to have lives of their own one day, and my hubby is always working and I am always alone.  So what is there for me in the future?  Will I ever be able to just exist without judgement or someone getting on my case about something?  These are the types of thoughts running through my head.  But in that moment, my husband reached out started rubbing my back and it immediately brought me out of it.  And I realized that whatever we end up doing in the future, he and I have each other.  And he is my rock and my best friend and I would never want to leave this earth because I love my husband and my kids and they make life worth everything.  And I started to feel better.

So my mantra for today is "this too shall pass".  The feeling of dread.  The feeling of being alone.  Living with her.  All this shit.  She can't help being a mental case, and I wish I could help how I respond to it.    But it will pass.  The feelings.  The situation itself.  Everything.  And one day she'll be in a home and I'll be living my life with my family, hopefully in an intentional way that I start to build now.  All starting with my thought process.  And remembering that no feelings last forever.  And eventually I'll find my bliss again.  

Sidenote: Oh and one way I helped my mental health get better lately is to turn off ads for articles on my homepage so I can't see them and be sucked in by all the terrible things going on in the world right now.  So many articles about 5 year olds being murdered by their parents.  Geezus fucking christ.  The world is sick, but I don't need to know these things or store that shit in my head.  Because horrible news articles wears on those of us who may have a little too much empathy in life, like me.  So I turned it off.  And it does help me stay on task and feel better not thinking about such horrible things.