Well, I finally did it.  I stood up to her about how she treats my son.  And I was wrong about not being punished about telling her to stay out of my room.  Well, she didn't punish me, she punished my dog, who got stuck in my room and kept on scratching at my door and freaking out and she refused to let him out because she's not allowed to go in my room.  

What a fucking baby.  

Anyways, today she screamed at my son (who's turning 24 this week) for walking over while she's doing the dishes and rising out his water jug.  He got defensive and said "It's just water, Grandma, so it's okay."  And she continued to lay into him and get exasperated with him.  So I was in the living room and yelled "You know, could you stop bitching at him for once?  If it were anyone else coming over there to do that you wouldn't say a word.  You're only angry because it's him!"  She ignored me so I repeated myself, but the second time I didn't use the word "bitching".  So I know she heard me the first time, because she referenced the fact I said it.  

She said "What did I do now?  I am always getting bitched out for something!!"  

I said "What?  When I do bitch you out?  I never yell at you.  Ever.  Even when I should.  Just because I ask you to stop doing something or remind you to do something when you forget, that doesn't mean I am yelling at you or bitching you out.  Don't be silly.  And I am just asking you to be nicer to my son.  You're always yelling at him every single day or telling him what to do or being mean to him.  I'm just asking you to be nicer to him." 

"Am I mean to you?  Am I?  Do I bitch at you all the time?" she starts asking my son her angry yet exasperated voice.  

Who replied "Ha ha, um....." *nervous laughter*

So I said "Stop asking him that.  Just be nice."  

She replies "I guess I should just start looking at homes.  It would be better than this."  

So I said in a funny a cheerful voice "Are you teasing us right now?  Because it sounds like you're totally teasing us." (meaning she too bad she wasn't serious, because I'd love for her to be in a home)  Funny, she doesn't realize there is only one home she can go into, and that's the state run home in our town.  I know this because I've done my research.  So there is no need to look at homes, ma, we already know which one you're going into!  Too bad they'll take the house away if you do (and she knows this--so this was her threat to leave us homeless).

So she's angry she can't go into my room and will punish my dog (or whatever cat is stuck in there) just to prove her shitty little point.  And she's angry because I am taking away her only scapegoat.  And I tell ya, guys, her behavior towards him is getting worse and worse.  And if she bitches at him again, I will point it out again.  And again.  And again.  Until she fucking stops.  

See, I took away her favorites scapegoat: me.  But my son has also been her scapegoat since he's been about eight.  My second son was born and he became her favorite, leaving my oldest to rot without a grandparent to love him.  Not a single one (my ex-inlaws are/were both narcissists who hated both my kids and my current inlaws are both narcissists who hate both kids).  My mother was the only one they had in their life regularly and she only hates my oldest.  My poor oldest son has never had a single adult, other than me and my husband (who adopted them in 2011) who had loved him, purely and unconditionally.  And I'll be damned if I am going to sit here and let her treat him like shit just because she's bored or just feeling like being an asshole.  

And neither of my kids got angry with me, as they could both see how mean she was being to him.  What kind of mother am I if I just let her do that shit to my kid?  Even though he's an adult, it doesn't matter.  Enough is enough.  

I feel pretty good about it, too.  Now the foundation has been set and she will be kept in line from now on.  Otherwise, if she wants to imagine that I keep "bitching her out"?  Then I will show her what that looks like.  

Oh, and she had a bunch of excuses as to why she yelled at him today, including a slew of lies.  But my point isn't to yell at her and call her out on her lies (since she is ALWAYS lying), my point here is to protect my son.  She made it all about me and how I am mean to her (which I am not), but I just kept turning it back to her behavior towards him.  And boy, did that make her angry.  

I guess The 'ol Seahag doesn't like being called out on her shit.  But mostly, she saw her teeny tiny last bit of narcissistic supply being taken away from her.  So just now, she turned her rage onto her cat.  I haven't heard her swear that much in a long time.  Like F-bombs and shit.  I guess the cat did something she didn't like.  So, now I have to watch her she doesn't physically hurt any of them.  If she does, I will have to find many of these cats new homes.  Which sucks, because they are all old.  But my mission in life is to protect those who cannot protect themselves (because nobody protected me as a kid) and that includes the pets that live in my home.  Even if I love them.  Though, I do wish I could find my mother a new home instead.  As that would make more sense and make more people happy.  

Anyways, she's pissy now.  Oh well.  Now she can be equally pissy to everyone, instead of singling out my oldest son.  That is acceptable to me.  But you know from my writings, eventually she'll revert right back to treating him like shit again and this time, I will be ready and waiting to pounce all over that shit the moment it happens.  

In the meantime, here is a list of the many ways she's treated my son like shit (including the every single day of her tedious bitching at him over everything he does): 

• Every time he cooks, she stands over him and bitches he's doing it wrong.  "You're going to burn it!"  "Ish, you like that stuff?  Yuck!"  "Well, that's not going to work."  "That smells weird.  Are you paying attention to it?"  She used to do the same thing to me.   But she quit after I got angry enough with her.  This is especially noticeable when he makes steak (he copies Gordon Ramsey's steak making techniques--and my mother slaps meat on the pan and cooks it until it's tough).  She is at her absolute worst with him anymore when he cooks steak.  So guess what?  He doesn't cook steak anymore.  Not when she's around.  She is ruthless!  She will literally stand in the kitchen and SCREAM her head off about how he's ruining them.  The first time, I looked at her and said "The only steak I have ever liked in my entire life is his steak."  "You used to eat mine!"  "I did not!  Your steak is gross and overcooked and just basic and boring.  He makes a butter sauce that he fries it in and seasons it and cooks it to perfection.  Yours are nasty.  Even Daddy hated them."  Oh she did not like that one bit.  But if you're going to be a bitch to my son?  Don't be surprised when I tell you the truth you never wanted to know.  After the second time she did this, he just stopped making steak.  
• On the other hand, everything my youngest son makes is AMAZING AND AWESOME AND ONE DAY HE SHOULD GO TO CULINARY SCHOOL!!!! OH EM GEE!  The thing is, they both cook amazingly well.  My youngest bakes and my oldest cooks.  They both bake and cook, but their expertise is in those things.  
• In 2013, after I found out my mother had NPD after a huge blowup (go back to the beginning of this blog, I wrote all about it), I went to two women: Christmas and Valentine's, my mother's BFFs and told them the truth about what was going on behind their backs for years.  How I grew up thinking that Christmas was mentally disabled (or as my mother put it "DEERRRRRR!" with her tongue hanging out of her mouth and making "disabled hands") and that was something that never stopped, even until that day.  And I told Valentines all about the shit my mother said about her.  Back then, me, Christmas, Valentines, and the other one (I can't remember the name I gave her) were Ye Olde Seahag's scapegoats.  She would put us through the cycle of idealization, devaluation, and discarding, over and over and over again.  And she would talk shit about whichever one was on her discard list to the others, who were on her idealization list at the time.  She'd rotate us.  It was plentiful time for her.  Plentiful in narcissistic supply.  But my oldest son came with me to talk to Valentines, because I could just not sit around and not tell them the truth, as it was a horrible feeling to know what was being said about them on a daily basis and then have these jokers not realize it at all.  Valentines believed me and got angry, but then realized my mother was her meal ticket, she turned on me and told her everything I said.  I should have realized that would happen.  But back then, I had no idea how narcissism really worked.  Anyways, Valentines didn't just turn on me, she lied to my mother and said my son called my mother names (like bitch, for one) and said a bunch of shit about her.  Which he didn't.  So my mother said to Christmas "I can forgive all of them, but I will never forgive him!", meaning my kid (if she thinks what my son supposedly said was bad, she should have heard what I actually said about her behind her back, ha!).  And that was in September or something.  Come Christmas (the holiday, not the person), she was still holding a grudge against him and bought my youngest $100 worth of toys, plus an expensive RC drone and got my oldest a $10 piece of shit RC car that was already broken.  He was sixteen years old.  So, I returned ALL of it (I told her the drone didn't work) with the receipts, got the money back, and split it between the two kids (my youngest didn't like his toys anyways, thank goodness).  Because fuck her.  She did the same thing to me and my husband: she bought me a $100 worth of gifts that year and gave him a $1 used sweater and a $1 box of chocolate covered cherries (which he hates).  I guess she didn't like her precious little golden child taking my side on things.
• Last night, when he came up for dinner, he took a serving of my baked tortellini and she said "DON'T TAKE IT ALL!"  Shaming him for taking what she thinks is too much food.  She didn't say "Because your brother didn't get any yet" or whatever, no, she said she could have seconds.  And she doesn't take seconds, ever (unless it's my lentil soup), so she was just food shaming him.  Up until less than a year ago, she was still food shaming me, which is why I refuse to get food in front of her for myself.  The other day, I was getting a bowl of cereal, and it was all I could to do keep getting it for myself, because I started having a panic attack as she was coming into the room.  And of course, she looked at my bowl full of cereal which I haven't poured the milk into yet and said "Oh, you're eating cereal, are you?"   This is partially why I feel like a prisoner in my bedroom, among many other reasons.  Anyways, she said to me when I came out "I told your son he didn't leave any for me to have seconds!"  I said "I didn't make this for anyone to have seconds, I made this for everyone to have a serving."  She laughed and said "Oh, I know, I was kidding."  But she wouldn't stop saying it.  And said it again when my son came back out (he was eating with me in my room).  So we know when Ye Olde Seahag starts in like that, she's covering up her nasty remark with jokes, so we don't notice she was being nasty.  It really hurt my son's feelings because she's always on him about eating food. 
• Back before I took over the household as "WOTH" (you can read about WOTH here), YOS (ye olde seahag) used to force us to eat dinner together, the five of us every single fucking night.  It was a horrible scene she was playing out from my childhood, when she used to force us all eat together back then, too, even though Dad was always wasted and I was always horribly anxious and didn't want to eat with them.  Living with her again and having to eat with her stirred up so many bad memories that I was literally retraumatized and stopped being able to eat for period of time.  It was horrible.  And during those idiotic family dinners (at a tiny table for two she forced all five of us to eat at) she would watch us like hawks.  "What's wrong, why aren't you eating?" she'd obsessively ask if we put our forks down for a moment.  But mostly, she would be on the kids with horrible comments like "Wow, you sure are packing that in!"  "Are you already done?  Good grief.  How can you eat that fast?"  And so forth.  Most of those comments were aimed at my oldest son.  Her main thing was that every single night she'd say "If I start before you guys, maybe I can beat you?" meaning how fast she'd clean her plate.  And that was back when if I said to her "Mom, that's rude!" my kids would get embarrassed and upset with me.  So, I had to sit there, and allow her to food shame my children and say nothing.  It was torture for us all (but not her).  She was still also food shaming me at that point, as well, which looking back at my entire life with her and her food shaming me, could be partially why I became anorexic in high school.
• If my son makes a project and uses the kitchen table to do so, she gets so angry with him.  She will make an exasperated sigh and say "Do you have to do that in here?  God dammit."  Even though she doesn't use the table for anything, other than eating (and I replaced the table with our HUGE table that seats eight people).  But if my youngest son were to be doing the same thing, she'd be interested in what he was making.  My oldest son, like myself pre-WOTH, can't do anything right in her eyes.  She used to say the same exact thing to me when I would work on projects out in the open.  So now I work on things in the basement and in my room only. 
• If my kids help make Christmas dinner with my mother, as they did in December of 2020, she will have HORRIBLE meltdowns and scream at my oldest about everything.  See, he's her scapegoat for her anger, her negativity, her pain.  Anything negative she's feeling, she takes it out on him.  And she's a HORRIBLE person to have cooking a holiday meal, as she's totally insane, and always has been when she cooks.  So in December of 2021, I said to her "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE HOLIDAY MEALS IN MY KITCHEN EVER AGAIN!"  Oh boy she was mad.  But at least it was mostly peaceful, as I cooked the meal didn't allow her near it.  
• When we lived upstairs from her from 2018 to 2020, she had a candy bowl she'd keep filled in her apartment.  Her candy bowl was part of her narcissistic supply.  She would fill it, and put it out where people who she'd know would take too much of it would see it.  And then complain they took too much of it.  Meaning my kids and her BFF Christmas.  Then she could bitch about them afterwards.  It was such a jolly game she'd play.  Before we moved in and we lived up the street from her, she'd put the candy bowl out only when my kids would come over, knowing they were trying to lose weight and were on diets.  I'd ask her "Hey, can we put this away when the kids are here?"  And she would refuse.  Just because she knew they'd have no willpower and eat it and she wanted them to ruin their diets and go back to eating junk food again.  Soon after, they stopped visiting her completely.  They knew how she was and knew it was on purpose.  
• She would bitch that the kids didn't visit her, but when they did, she'd bitch that they were there.  Eventually, they just stopped seeing her all together, other than on holidays.  By then, she had her posse and didn't care.  We lived a block away, and she didn't give two shits if she ever saw the kids.  But when I went no contact with her for fourteen months, she said "You know what killed me during that time?  Not seeing the kids!"  Bullshit.  She just wanted to play the victim and that was a great way to make her look like a doting and loving grandma.  Which she isn't one iota of.
• When my son got his first job when he was sixteen as a bagger at our local grocery store, and quit soon after, she made fun of him to her friends.  "Oh, he doesn't work there anymore, because he has anxiety!"  That last word was said in a sing-song voice that indicated she was making fun of him and demeaning him at the same time, the way she used to make fun of Christmas for being mentally disabled (she's not, by the way).  What kind of grandmother says that about her grandchild?  But then again, she always picked on me for my anxiety, too, so what did I expect?  She's a potato.  And a potato will always act like a potato.  Don't expect otherwise.
• Every single day, in some way or another, she gets on my son's case.  She complains at him, or yells at him, or says something demeaning or rude.  Which is why I said something today.  And will from this day forward.