I've come to see that I have this insatiable need to be right with my mother in my life.  And that's where a huge part of my negative attitude comes from.  I always feel I need to disagree with her for no reason.  I always feel that I need to "prove her wrong" constantly.  It's tiresome.  And completely insane.  

So I traced this back to where it started.  And I clearly see that a) she does the same thing to me and always has, which is where I picked it up and b) when I am wrong about something, she will go out of her way to make me feel stupid.  So it's equally just bad habit mixed with protecting myself from feeling stupid.  And then I realized, her mother must have done the same thing to her, and she does it for the same reasons.  I've said this part several times before, but my mother has a pretty low IQ.  And her mother was a freaking genius.  My grandfather had a low IQ also, which is why my grandmother chose him, so she could feel that she was always the smartest one in the relationship.  Because having an intellectual equal is not as important as feeling superior when you're a narcissist.  

So, my mother and her sister inherited Peepaw's brain capacity, and my uncle inherited Meemaw's.  The funny part is that my uncle was not Meemaw's favorite though, he was Peepaw's.  I don't think Meemaw had a favorite.  Or if she did, I just don't know who it was.  Anyways, I know that my Meemaw saw my mother has her rival, just as my mother sees me.  Meemaw was always jealous of everything my mother did and would try to outdo her.  When my mother took her wedding and engagement ring to go get it reset into a single ring, Meemaw went out and copied her the next day.  The rings were almost identical.  Whenever my mother did anything, Meemaw did it, too.  They say that copying is the highest form of flattery, I don't think that person was dealing with a narcissist.  Because intention matters.  But then again, it also doesn't.  If we could all let go of our personal hurt due to a narcissist's actions, none of us would be wounded or scarred.  But that's some Don Miguel Ruiz shit right there.  "Don't take anything personally".  And he's right.  Nothing our mothers do have anything to do with us at all.  We are just the targets for their pain.  They choose us because they can hurt us.  The siblings they treat better they only treat better because it creates the dynamic they want in their life.  They don't actually like them better.  And they don't actually hate us.  We are all just tools to them, like a carpenter with saws and hammers.  We are not people to them, we are objects.  And Meemaw treated her kids like objects, too, so my mother learned it from her.  As yours learned it from their mother.  

So I am going to actively practice letting my mother be right, even when she's wrong.  Well, not when she's really wrong, but I am going to give up disagreeing with her about everything.  I am going to just her be.  Yesterday I pissed her off because she was out yelling for her cat again, and I told her to just leave him alone.  It's freaking annoying how much she's obsessed with that cat.  Like OBSESSED.  She has many cats, too, but for some reason, that particular one is not just her favorite, but for real, he's her obsession.  And he can't do anything without her obsessing over where he is, and why he's not in her room.  He's HUGE, and she will manhandle the shit out of her him to carry him in there, when clearly he doesn't want to be.  When she was in the rehab hospital in early 2021 for four months, that cat was FREE!  He was a totally different cat!  He was relaxed, he slept with the dogs, he was friendly to everyone, he was sooooo happy.  Then she came back, and he went right back to hiding and being neurotic again, acting terrified of everything.  Hmmm, I wonder why?  But I can't stop her from obsessing over him, so I should just leave her be about it.  Well, unless she's manhandling him.  Because then either a) she hurts him or b) he hurts her.  

But as for just disagreeing with her when she's wrong?  It's useless.  But the time I look up something to see if I am right, she's forgotten about it and never cares if I bring it back up.  It's completely defeating.  So, I just need to let her be wrong and find a good phrase to use, like she uses on us.  "Oh, you think so?"  That's her phrase she uses.  It's so annoying.  So, maybe I can use it back at her?  Or find my own phrase to use.  Like "Oh, that's nice." or "That's interesting."  Or something like that.  And just who cares if she's wrong.  I can just let it go.  And if she disagrees with me about something I say, I can still use the phrase.  She is right sometimes, but even if she is, I don't need to feel attacked or angry or annoyed, I can just let it go.  Because in my day-to-day life, this is the ONE thing that puts me in a shitty mood most days.  And then there are those times, when I am feeling particularly saucy, that I will disagree with her when I know she's right, just to be annoying.  Oh, now that's childish.  But I do it when I am already annoyed with her just to make myself feel better.  I need to stop that.  Because it's just stupid.  

Ever watch "Friends"?  If so, did you see the one in season four where Ross does this thing with his hands, where he pounds his fists together and Monica says "Oh that's what Ross used to do when he wanted to give our parents the finger without actually giving them the finger".  That's what I do now when I am frustrated with my mother.  Oh, I still flip her off behind her back, but this I can do out in the open whenever I like.  It's a very nice way to relieve irritation without being completely rude or hostile.  And it's quite funny, go look it up if you haven't seen it yet.  

In 2022, I've made plans for a lot of things to do this year.  But how can I do any of them if I am still miserable living with my mother?  I have put myself into my own prison, and I really need to work on getting myself out of it.  I need to learn how to do deal with her properly.  I learned how to deal with my ex back in the day when I had to actually deal with him.  So, I can do it now, too.  It's not as easy with my mother, as I live with her and didn't live with my ex when I finally figured it out.  But I had put myself into a prison with him, too, and learned how to get myself out.  I can do it again.  And it will start by: 

1. Not always needing to be right;
2. Not letting me be wrong be a source of shame (she always shamed me for being wrong);
3. Not playing her games when she initiates them;
4. Not creating games of my own to play with her, as that makes me no better than her (even if she's the only one I do this with);
5. Letting her be wrong and ignoring it;
6. Taking each situation in which she annoys the shit out of me and working out how to deal with each on their own;
7. Learn to stop taking her moods as my own (if she's angry at me, don't let it make me angry, etc.);
8. And release the hold that she has had on me since childhood, this strange connection between us, which is what causes all of this anger towards her, and is the source of all my pain.  I thought I had already severed this hold back in 2013 when I stopped thinking that if she died, I would die without her (wow, I can't even remember feeling this way!).  But in actuality, it seems as though it was never disconnected, and instead just started rotting from the inside out, and became corrupted.  You could say it was always corrupted and rotting, but I didn't know that.  Now the tie that binds us is this source of seething, nasty, boiling hot anger that I need to sever.  I think it's a type of mourning I need to go through.  Like, anger for feeling duped that I once thought her and I were some kind of team.  A shitty, stupid team, but a team nonetheless.  And I don't think I ever mourned that properly.  To mourn the fact that I was the one who was wrong all this time.  She was always who she was.  I just didn't see it.  Yes.  I need to sever that cord and heal from all that infection that's been pumping into me since then.  Damn.  That's a long time to be pumping poison into your soul.  Nine years.  But many of you readers probably have been dealing with it for so much longer than I have.  And if you haven't healed yet, let's make 2022 the time when we actively try to heal together, okay?