"Ain't no party like a dementia party because dementia party don't stop!"

With dementia, they can be good for a while and then have a drop off, and then level out again, rather than just a slow decline like people think it is.  And my mother seems to have had another recent drop off, as her cognitive abilities seem to be getting all mucked again.  She had one right before we moved here, another after we moved in, another after her surgery, and one not too long ago, and now this one.  So I'm finding it slightly harder to get as angry at the things she does, as I know she's going a bit more insane (even though I know it's still mixed through the lens of her narcissism).

Recently, I threw away the dish cleaning sponges (we use luffas) because the one she was using was gross, so I got out another one and found that it reeked of some sort of perfumed chemcialy smelling cleaner.  So I grabbed the last one and it smelled the same.  I was scared she has used them for cleaning or sprayed some sort of unsafe cleaner on them (which she could have only gotten from my bedroom, which I have to lock up now if I'm not home or outside) and then was going to be using them to clean the dishes.  So I threw them away into the garbage.  The next day, guess where I found them?  Oh, you most likely guessed right.  

I found them back in their place on the fucking counter.  

Oh.  Fucking.  Ew.  

I mean, I wanted to stop her from washing the dishes, as she doesn't clean them at all, and puts most of the dishes away dirty (something I assume is from her dementia), but to find out she would pull the sponges out of the garbage and use them on our dishes????  Oh holy geezus.  Now that's pretty fucking crazy.  

So I went and got some Dawn foamy spray bottle soap (I don't remember the name) to use so I don't have to soak them, and my son showed my mother the bottle and said "We're going to use this on the dishes so we don't have ot use water to soak them" and she replied "Not me!!  I guess your mother is going to wash them then!"  So he got her to believe she gave up her dishwashing rights to me, and we didn't take them away from her.  Which annoys me a little, because it gives her the upper hand.  But that's petty.  I know.  And it's so much better for her to believe she had a choice in this, rather than me taking something away form her.  

Because she believes I take everything away from her.  If I wash the cabinets, she will say "I WAS GOING TO DO THAT!  YOU TOOK MY JOB AWAY FROM ME!"  The same goes for if I wash the windows or do anything else in the house.  It's so bad that I am afraid to clean things.  She refuses to clean things, but if I do it, she says SHE was going to do it and I am wrong for doing it.  I don't want to listen to her shit, so I clean when she's asleep.  So she'll make the comment "Oh, I need to stay up later, since you seem to have a party when I'm asleep".   I absolutely hate those types of comments.  Its her disapproval of what I've done, even though what I've done was a good thing.  She loves to claim she's the "cleaner" in the family, that she loves to clean, yet she never cleans anything.  I clean, and she doesn't even say it's not good enough, she makes it out to be that I've literally done something wrong by doing it. 

And I am not mentally strong enough anymore to handle it anymore.  

I have severe anxiety, and medical issues that exacerbate said anxiety.  And so the idea of having to do with my mother when I need to clean something or do something in the house, my anxiety will flare up and make me feel horrible.  So the next time I need to do the same thing, my anxiety will just flare up thinking about it.  It turns into this horrible cycle, which leads me to becoming completely stuck and frozen and not doing anything at all.  And then the guilt sets in that I haven't cleaned anything and my mother will pick up on this, and she will then make comments about how something needs to be done and she'll say "I guess I have to do it" in her shitty voice.  It's a vicious cycle of crap.  

And now my mother is having accidents, but it may just be due to food and not her body failing.  But if it's her body failing, she will be going in a home soon, because I cannot handle that either.  Even less than I can handle her shitty behavior.  She keeps saying she can wear diapers.  Or that I can hire someone to take care of her in the house.  I know she doesn't want to go in a home.  I know it scares her.  I know she knows that once she goes in on, she will never leave it.  I know that she knows she will lose every bit of freedom she has left.  And she will be forced to listen to what others say, something she hates more than anything else in life.  

She does not see me as her daughter, she sees me as her jailor, her warden, her bossy parent.  So she acts out like a little kid, yelling and screaming and stamping her feet and throwing fits.  Although she used to threaten me, and still tries to, but for the most part, she's stopped that, because I've taken away everything she can threaten me with. 

She always has thrown a fit whenever I do the right thing, and her favorite motto was to yell "You're taking everything away from me!", but when she started saying that, the only thing I had taken away from her was her ability to drive.  Then, I could not get the city, the state, or her doctors to take her license away, so I had to give her her car back.  Then I permanently took it away in 2020, and she screamed it at me again.  Then I stopped her from going in the basement (per her physical therapist's orders) and she said it again.  It's so funny thought that one or two things was "everything", but it wasn't until she had surgery and went to rehab for several months that literally took everything away from her (she was mismanaging her money and making really bad decisions about most things).  When she got back from surgery, she was livid about all of that, and then started threatening to sell her pain narcotics to drug addicts she knew (although those drug addicts are dead--due to overdoses), so took those away from her, too, and only doled out to her what she needed.  Recently, I had to take away her ability to get Tylenol or ibuprofen on her own, as she was taking too many of those.  I also took away her ability to get the mail, and told her if she did get it, I'd get a PO box instead (otherwise she will try to buy everything she sees in the junk mail).  

So I have taken away many things from her.  Many, many things.  But only because I had to.  My response is always "I am not taking these things away from you, your body is taking them away."  But she never listens.  

But I am okay with her getting angry at her losing her freedoms.  I mean, I would never complain and treat my kids like shit over it (but I am not a narcissist, so yeah).  But I cannot tolerate her treating me like I am taking away things from her when I do the things she refuses to do.  "I can't wash that until you buy me special scrubbies!"  "I can't do this, unless you buy this special product!"  I have bought some of those products and she refuses to use them anyways.  Or pretends to forget I bought them.  She just wants to put me out in some way or blame me in some way so when she doesn't clean or do something (I never ask her to clean, by the way), then it's my fault because I didn't "buy the thing" she needed to do it or I took too long to buy the thing, etc.  So I never buy the thing, and do whatever it is she is saying she wants to buy the thing for.  "I need scrubbies to wash the bathroom trim!"  YET, the floor is dirty or the fridge is dirty or a billion other things are dirty, yet she wants to clean some obscure stupid thing that doesn't matter.  It's just game.  She doesn't really want to clean it.  Or, if she does clean it, she will make a huge deal out of it as though it was the hardest thing in the world.  When I clean things, I clean them quietly and without fanfare.  I used to be more like her.  Because I learned from her how to keep a house.  But eventually, I learned that cleaning isn't that big of a deal and nobody even needs to know you did it.  Well, unless you're super proud of yourself.  Like cleaning the garage or something.  Something my mother bitched about so much back in the day, so I'd clean it, and she'd say nothing at all about it.  

She just wants something to bitch about. 

I need to set up a cleaning routine for myself and ignore her.  Just some daily tasks, even though now I have the wash the dishes every single night, instead of the morning (by nighttime, my energy is completely wasted, but I do it anyways, because I have to).  But sweeping and/or vacuuming (I have a new Shark vacuum!) and window spot cleaning and cleaning the outside of the fridge off each day isn't a big deal.  I can do some of these things while cooking (even washing the dishes as I go).  And I just need to ignore her stupid comments.  Because, in reality of things, who cares?  She's on a downward decline as of lately, so maybe she'll stop her comments all together soon?  That would be nice.  

My brain has been fried lately.  I've been having a horrible flareup of my symptoms (I get skin fevers, nausea, insomnia, and dizziness and other stupid crap).  So I've been running around most days on 4 hours of sleep and I am like an animal when I don't get enough sleep and will snap at everyone (though, not really that much, just only when I am at my breaking point).  So the whole "taking away her dishwashing job" thing was seriously wearing on my nerves.  She kept on and on about it.  But she quit now and actually put away the dishes I washed last night, which was nice.  Normally she leaves them for me, which is fine, but it's a message: "You wash them?  I wash my hands of the whole thing."  Again, as though I am doing something wrong by wanting to clean the dishes I paid for and I cook on, in my own house.  It's FUCKING RIDICULOUS how much she guilts me for wanting to clean my own house.  But, like I said, she quit talking about it and I hope it stays that way, or else I'll just ask her "What's wrong with me wanting to clean my own dishes?  You know, I did keep a house for almost twenty years before moving in here with you.  You aren't the only person who can do these things."  Or do them even remotely well.  But I won't add that part in.  Because, you know, dementia, and all that.

Ugh, well that's how this week is going.  So much fun.  And so silly, yet so aggravating.  

PS: I hate that Dawn foamy spray bottle cleaner.  I hate hate hate it.  And because I do, it gives me anxiety to have to wash the dishes with it.  So I went back to a sink full of water instead.  But mother doesn't have to know that.  Let her believe I am doing them in some fancy schmancy way so she won't want to do them herself.  Problem solved.  

I am preparing for the inevitable.  That's who I am.  I have ADHD, and I'm scatterbrained, but somehow as I age, I get more organized with certain things, and I have really turned into a bit of a planner.  Since the pandemic started in 2020, I started a stockpile of food with my kids.  I am slowly learning how have enough for an entire year (there's a great book I'm reading, called "A Year Without the Grocery Store").  I have a house organizational notebook (it's bullet journal planner thing, with all the info for our house).  And my Pinterest has a HUGE homesteading/survivalist planning section, which has taught me a lot, too.  I am also meticulous about how I wash the dishes (though I don't impress my "system" onto anyone else--anymore LOL).  I also clean up as I cook, which is something I never used to do.  I also grocery shop with curated lists that make sense and saves me oodles of money.  I have ASD, so I tend to see things in black and white, so change is hard, yet at the same time, easy for me.  So whereas getting to the point I can change can be hard, but once I get it into my head I am ready for change, BAM!  Like a lightbulb, I can just do whatever new thing it is with ease.  So, when it comes to changing things for my mother, is brings me GREAT amounts of anxiety, but once I do it, I am resolved and unlike her wishy-washy style of parenting (all I had to do as a teen was push hard enough and she'd cave and stop caring), I parent her as a stern, yet caring parent would.  And I do not back down.  

My mother has already admitted to going for walks on her own when we're gone, as if it wasn't a big deal (she's a HUGE fall risk and can barely walk at all without almost tipping over).  So, I have a lock for our front door I am prepared to use when I catch her escaping when she shouldn't be.  We aren't quite there yet, but when we are, I am prepared.  I pre-prepared for this by locking up the back gate.  There is one gate in our back and she can't get out to the front if the front door and garage are locked up.  So, while I would never be trapping her in the house (which is dangerous), she would most definitely not be able to leave the back yard on her own (to keep her from wandering).  I am not saying to lock her up when I leave, but at night, if she starts escaping, this will have to happen.  She can escape into the backyard all she wants.  She just won't be able to leave it.

But now she noticed.  It's been locked up for a bit, but she wanted to bring some stuff around front and could not get through.  So she asked everyone, but me, for the combination.  And even though I was right there.  She didn't want to ask me, because she knew.  She knew I did it because of her.  Although, I always wanted that gate locked up ever since we moved in.  It's one less way someone can break into our house, since my mother cannot remember to lock the back door most of the time, even though there's a sign on the door written REALLY big: "KEEP DOOR LOCKED!".  

(Actually, our house has become a sticky-note wonderland, since she doesn't listen if I ask her nicely.  So the sticky note shames her into the fact now everyone knows she's doing something annoying or gross, so she stops without fighting me on it.  Because she ALWAYS fights me on everything.  "Please do not put sides of garbage bag inside of can", "No smoking in the front yard", "Do not hang the scrubbie on the faucet handle" (it's a luffa sponge and have a place for it, but she refuses to use it), "No orange peels in the compost", "No plastic lids in the recycling bag", "Please put the draft snake back in front of the door when it's closed", etc. etc.  She always refuses to do that one, unless I am in the room.  But she leaves the door unlocked (and if you've been here before, you know my mother HATES locked doors (though not in a way that alludes to her being locked in a room as a child, but as a defiance to the world "I don't have to shut or lock my doors!!  The world's rules do not apply to me!!!  I do what I want!!")

So, now there is a lock on the fence, and nobody can get in, or out, without the combination.  Which is one of our birth years, so I made it easy to remember.  But she's angry now.  And she's on my case about getting through it.  But I will not back down.  And I may have to yell at her about it one day, is she gets too combative about it (which is what usually happens when I change something for her). 

Here are the reasons why she'll never get the combination: 

1. So she won't escape, when the time comes she starts escaping, which I am assuming will be soon.  My backyard is huge, so she won't be trapped close to the house if there were a fire or an intruder or something, Though I don't think she'd be home alone for any of that.  
2. To keep my family safe from the riff-raff of the world, because she'll never relock it.  
3. To keep her from leaving the gate open, which happened last summer and my dog escaped.  
4. To keep the landscapers from leaving the gate open, which also happened last year. 
5. To keep her from stealing my stuff and bringing it around the front without me knowing.  She does this.  A LOT.  And if she has to drag it through the house, she won't do it, for fear of getting caught. 

My mother gets a hair up her ass (what an odd saying that is) whenever my oldest son cooks.  So today, he was cooking low-carb peanut butter cookies and she came into the kitchen and bitched she couldn't make any coffee.  We have no idea why, but apparently, my son cooking means she can't do things.  So instead, she stood in the same exact place where she makes coffee and instead takes a long time to pour herself some coffee from her coffee thermos.  Um, if she can stand there and do that, why could she not stand there and make coffee?  

So she does this, and my son reaches in front of her and says in a really nice way (because he's always SUPER nice to her--something she doesn't get, he's the only one in the house who's that nice to her, yet she picks on him relentlessly at times) "Oh excuse me Grandma" when he needed to get into the drawer she was blocking.  She said "No, I'm not going to move.  You have to wait."  

So he did.  She finished and still didn't move.  He said "I need a spoon."  So she turns to him and gives him a creepy smile and pushes her side up to the drawer and won't move.  To her face, he was patient.  But inside?  He said "Oh, I could have smacked grandma today" LMAO  Not that he'd ever do anything like that, but sometimes you just think to yourself when she acts like this how much you want to just grab her and move her to where she needs to be.  

Then she turns forward towards the counter again and backs up and he reaches to open the drawer and she reaches down and opens it with him.  And then when he reached in to grab a spoon, she pushes her head into the view of the drawer, like she's inspecting it and then makes stupid faces about him getting a spoon.  

This is how my mother makes fun of what you're doing.  She acts like what you're doing is stupid and she makes stupid, exaggerated actions about you doing it.  Yet, if my youngest son is cooking, she makes a HUGE deal about how he needs to be a chef!!!  YET, if my oldest is cooking, he's a fucking nuisance to her.  Yet he's an amazing cook.  So is my youngest.  I raised two boys who know how to cook and both are great at it.  Granted, I cannot take any part of the credit at all, as they had to want to learn how to cook.  And I never taught them.  They learned from Gordan Ramsey.  So thank you to TV chefs who show kids every single day how awesome it is to make amazing food.  

Yesterday, my son made pork chops (I buy HUGE pork tenderloins and cut those huge fuckers into 1-inch thick chops).  I didn't eat them as they were spicy.  But he made two today, for him and his brother for lunch and OMFG one bit was not enough, but it was all I was allowed, as it wasn't my lunch.  Holy crap was it good (he made up his own seasoning).  Even the fat and I hate fat!!  Actually, the fat was the best part!  

But she did all this, and not once did she say "Good job, you're a great cook!" or "You should be a chef!" or "Wow, can you see how well your son cooks?" all of which she says about my youngest son when he cooks.  Nope.  She screams and yells at my oldest about how he's "dirtying down HER dishes she just washed" or "what a mess I'll have to clean up!" (yet she never has to clean up after him) or screams at him that he's doing it wrong.  Never a single compliment.  Just rude ass strange behaviors to show him she does not approve of his cooking in the kitchen.  One time she screamed at me "Tell YOUR son that he's got MY dishes in HIS room again!!"  I said "No, he doesn't (they were in my room, but I never told her).  I just went into his room and there were no dishes in there.   And by the way, they are MY dishes if you want to play the ownership game, as I bought them all."  She got so mad at that one she just threw the dish she was washing down and left the room.  Dumbass.  

From now on, when he cooks, I am going to leave my door open and come into the kitchen when I hear her in there, so I can either just be a presence that will stop her or put her in her fucking place if I have to.  He won't stand up to her (although he used to--when he was a teenager, but he's grown up so much since then), which is perfectly fine, because we each have own battles to fight in life, and we can choose to deal with them however we like.  I used to let her do what she liked, because I had to.  But I no longer have to, so if she wants to treat my son like shit?  Well, I will have something to say about it, as much as I can (without pissing off my kids).  Not enough to make him uncomfortable.  But enough to get her to stop.  If I have to talk to her alone about it, I will.  But I need to witness what's going on so she can't word salad me about it.  Which she will.  Even if I see it.  But if I see it, she can't argue with me (if I don't see it, she will refuse to listen to me and continue to lie about it).

After he was done making the cookies, he went and gave her some.  Because he's a really nice person who's nice to a grandma who treats him like garbage most of the time.  I hate when people treat him badly, because he, and his brother, both deserve love and goodness.  Especially from their stupid grandma.  

See, I already yelled at her about being mean to him.  So now she's doing it silently thinking I won't know if I don't hear her.  So much fun.  

But yeah, just another day in the life of living with an old and demented narcissist.  Where every day is a party and nobody is having any fun.  Wheeeeeee!!

Her: Can you please get my old white comforter from the basement?  I hate this one.  It's so ugly.  Why did you let me buy it??

Me: That's mean.  I gave that to you.  That's mean because that's what you got mad at me about when I gave it to you in the first place, you said it was so ugly.  

Her: No!  I bought this, don't you remember??

Me: No.  You.  Did.  Not.  I bought that.  Not you.  

Her: No, I did!  blah blah blah blah (I tuned her out at that point)

Me: No, that was (my youngest son's) old blanket.  I bought it for him.  (In actuality, I bought for my other kid, but he gave it to his brother, so I was wrong in that part).  And you needed a blanket because you hated the other one you had, and that was the only clean one.  And you complained you hated it because it was so ugly.  But there was nothing else, so you kept it.  

Me: That's fine.  Just stop saying it's ugly.  

Her: Well, I only said that because I thought I bought it. 

Me: No you didn't.  Because you said that when I gave it to you, knowing it was (my son's) blanket.  

Her: (puts on her innocent voice for pity) Well, I forgot.  

Me: Of course you did.  

My oldest son thought I was defending them, by getting angry she was calling their blanket ugly.  I told him no, I was not defending them, I was putting her in her place to stop being rude.  Everything I give her, she has an issue with it.  Everything I make her, she tells me how it could be better.  Everything is a rude comment with her.  So I was angry she was being rude again.  And that she was making up lies.  I cannot say it was her dementia (though she uses that to her advantage to get out of sticky situations), because this typical of her, to make up a lie about something.  To say she bought the blanket and has an entire backstory for it, some imaginary trip we made together to go get it.  She's done this for my entire life.  She gets caught being an asshole, and so she lies to get out of it.  So I didn't let her lie her way out of it this time.  Even if it was her memory issues, it doesn't matter.  I wasn't mean to her or rude or stern with her, I just didn't let her lie. 

It feels good and healing to me be able to do that.  For my entire life I never got to set her straight about so many things.  God, the lies she's told and gotten away with.  But now, I get to correct her and make her 100% aware nobody believes her.  And maybe one day she'll realize, nobody ever has.  

When I first heard about the drama between Johnny Deep and his wife Amber Heard, it was when she was accusing Johnny Depp of being abusive.  Before that, I had no idea who AH was.  I mean, everyone knows Johnny Depp.  And we all know he's eccentric, so the idea of being abusive, seemed not to far of a stretch, as eccentric people can be weird.  But it wasn't just a "he said/she said" sort of thing that got me, it was the video she put out and I listened to him berate her and sound just like my father when he was screaming at her.  So, I just believed he was physically abusing her as well, as my father did to my mother and myself, because if JD can almost exactly sound like my dad (the way he talked when he was drunk and abusive), then he can certainly act like him, too.  

As the story went on, I started to realize that his wife was also off the rails and most likely also abusive, but I never had any idea how or just how much.  In fact, my stance on anything in the world of famous people is "it's honestly none of my fucking business".  Which is why I don't watch reality shows, like the Kardashians or the "Real Wives of Buttfuck" or whatever else is out there.  Because who...fucking...cares, right?  I mean, they're famous people getting a show for doing what?  Living their stupid rich lives?  But some of these stories do interest me.  And I those I watch because the subject matter grabs me or is important to me, like documentaries or even some reality TV.  Like say, that one show about the lady who left the Orthodox Jewish community and became the boss of something (I think a magazine?).  I like seeing people try to make a life out of being atheist after leaving a strict religious life, as I, myself, am an atheist.  So I thought that to be interesting.  Instead, all I got was a totally narcissistic woman who invades the lives of her children and tries to pretend she's the boss of everyone around her at all times.  But, again, it interests me, because...well...narcissism.  

When something hits home for me, I pay attention.  And this is why the JD and AH case really bothered me.

When I brought up the video of JD screaming at his wife to my librarian (like, we went there several times a week and knew all the librarians very well, so this wasn't odd for me to bring up something to one of them) and she said "What if Amber Heard made him do it?  What if it's all her fault?"  

Well, I was fucking steaming after that.  I mean, victim blame much?  But then again, I hated this librarian and I was just trying to make small talk with her to be nice (she's a raging narcissist), so what came out of her mouth was pretty normal for her.  She's dumber than a box of rocks and is rude as fuck.  And after her comment, I hated her even more, even though it wasn't that surprising.

I mean, how could anyone make their husband beat them?  That's stupid.  Right?  Right??  

Well, turns out, not exactly.  I mean, my mother did exactly that to my father.  She pushed him and pushed him and pushed him, knowing damn well what was going to come next, and then she'd sick him on me.  She did it on purpose to get whatever she needed to get from him yelling at her, and then when it got too far, she'd quickly turn on at dime and bring up my name, as well as something horrible I did (which sometimes was made up), to get him focused off her and onto me.  Maybe she knew I was a fast runner?  Maybe she knew I could escape him?  Probably not.  She just was reacting in the moment to the looming knowledge she was going to get beat.

Anyways, my mother pushed my father on purpose because she loved being the victim (she wanted him to remind her of what a piece of shit she felt like inside and then afterwards, pretending like it never happened).  But that doesn't mean my father had any right to put his hands on her, or on me.  You could push me all day, and I will walk away.  I am not abusive.  I may get angry and I may yell at someone (but hardly ever), but I won't hit them.  I mean, I've come close and really wanted to, but I am an adult and I know better.  

In my first marriage, my husband used to punch a whole in the wall and scream "I WISH THIS WAS YOUR FACE!!!"  I used to push him, too.  I used to want him to hit me so I had a reason to leave.  I hated him so very, very much.  So much so, after the birth of my second son, I moved out without him even realizing I had.  I'd stay all week at my mother's house (my father was dead by then), and then go home on the weekends.  I hated being around him.  I hated seeing him.  But I felt trapped.  Mostly because of my inability to stand up for myself speak my truth back then.  He was mean to my kids and very neglectful (which only got worse after I left him).  He brought out the worst in me.  And we'd have SCREAMING fights all the fucking time, swearing at each other and being our most trashiest selves.  And after I left him, we didn't stop fighting.  Not for a long time.  Not until I took it upon myself to just quit one day.  To stop being angry at him so much.  I just started to expect him to be at his worst, and when he was, I didn't bother me anymore.  I just ignored it.  I said "He can't do better, so I can't expect him to do better."  Not to him, but in my head to myself.  So I stopped expecting him to be normal, to act rational or nice or kind or even act like a normal human.  I didn't know it at the time, but he was a narcissist, like his mother and father was (and still are, though his father is now dead).  So that's why he wasn't rational or normal.  He was unpredictable and horrid.  I never knew if he was going to be in a good mood or a violent mood.  And now, so many years later, I realize it wasn't just  his NPD that made him so bad.  I mean, it was, but not fully.  He has a mood disorder, ODD, and ASD, mixed with his NPD.  Not a good combo to have.  (I have ADHD and ASD, so I'm not bashing aspies here, I am just saying mixing the ODD with everything else, is a bad combo--my mother also has ODD and NPD, too, and acts just like him).  

And when I left him, what he did he?  Total fucking smear campaign.  He did the same thing when he gave up his rights to his children years later, even though it was his idea.  He had everyone believing I made him do it and I was a horrible person. 

The same goes for my mother when I went no contact with her in 2017.  She went on the biggest smear campaign she could, telling everyone I was bipolar (which her therapist told her, after hearing about how I stopped talking to her...she said "She sounds bipolar!") even though I'm not, and how this and that and whatever she could think of, turning everyone against me.  So when you separate from a narc, whether a friend or a loved one or a romantic partner, they will drive your name into the ground as deep as they possibly can take it.  And it never dawned on me that this was happening with AH and Johnny Depp (mostly because I didn't care about the case or any of it, because again, famous people...who cares?)

But then today, I turned on my TV and an old video from 2020 popped up (I watch YouTube on my TV instead of cable) and I thought "Oh, what the hell" and turned it on.  I mean, I've this idea for years that JD was this wife beater, so what else did I need to know about the case?  But I am a sucker for real audio, whether in the form of documentary or even, I guess, a YouTube video.  I had just recently watched Evan Rachel Wood's documentary about Marilyn Manson, which sickened me.  And in the past, I watched the documentary made by the survivors of Michael Jackson, which sicked me the most (I am soooooo glad that motherfucker is dead).  And I watched the documentary about Dylan Farrow and her horrible father Woody Allen (which also sickened me).  I like knowing the truth.  I like making decisions for my life of who to watch or listen to based on the truth.  I mean, after the lead singer of Lost Prophets was found to be having literal sex with literal babies (like offered up by their mothers...fucking sick!), did people still listen to his music?  I guess if you're a baby fucker, you would.  

Now, not all people see things the way I do.  They don't mix the person with the craft.  But I cannot separate the two.  If I hear a Jackson song, I will turn it off.  Because he disgusts me.  And I was to the point I'd stop watching Johnny Depp movies, based on the fact that I thought he beat his wife.  

And today, as I found out, that it's simply not true.  And that AH is real abuser (as the title of the video says) and if you listen to this video, you'll totally understand why.  

You're here because you understand narcissism, right?  Or maybe you want to understand it so you can recognize it in others to protect yourself from them?  Either way, this video will make you understand just how a narcissist works in an argument.  You'll hear the bullying, the gaslighting, the word salad, the everything that they do.  Amber Heard is a fucking raging narcissist.  And her accusing Johnny Depp of abuse is her smear campaign to get back at him for leaving her.  Yes, he wasn't nice in that video I heard many years ago when he was screaming at AH.  I am not saying he's perfect or even a good guy.  I am only saying that this video, to me, proves he didn't abuse her, and she, herself, is the horribly abusive one.  It was sick, to listen to her gaslight the shit out of him, as well as word salad her way around the actual conversation, as well as bully him (she basically says he's weak and a baby for calling for help to his bodyguard when she was physically attacking him one night) and do a little dance around anything that was ever brought up that she did bad.  And her only argument was that JD leaves the room when she's being volatile, that makes her "feel unsafe".  Um, what??  Uhhhh okay.  

So if you're bothered by this type of talk, it may trigger you.  But if you want to hear a real narc in action?  Then give it a listen.  You'll be better off, knowing how they talk so you can better protect yourself in the future.  Forget they're famous.  Forget who they are and what their jobs are.  They are two people in an abusive relationship, where the man is staying with a physically and verbally abusive woman.  I am not saying he didn't verbally abuse her at other times, as well, but I used to be in a relationship similar to this one.  And I'd yell and scream, too, in reaction to my abusive ex-husband calling me horrible names or telling me I was stupid or dumb or some other abusive thing.  But I don't argue with anyone like that anymore.  I found a good man who helped me change and taught me what love is supposed to look like.  And it's not  at all what you'll hear in this video.  That's not love.  That's 100% abuse.   

Fucking librarian was most likely right.  God, I hate it when narcissists are right LOL  But she was right, that AH brought out the worst in JD and it was her fault.  And I hope one day JD finds a good woman who teaches him the proper way to love someone else, and himself and not repeat this kind of relationship again.  Because geezus fucking christ.  

Okay, here is the video (it's long, but worth the listen): 

Today my mother was emotionally absent.  But then again, she's like that most days anymore.  But today, it didn't feel like a holiday at all, and I tried to analyze why.  And I figured it out: 

I have no idea how to get into that "holiday feeling" unless my mom is being a horrendous bitch.  

My youngest son said "Maybe we've all been programmed to believe that holidays equal stress and without it, it just doesn't feel like anything but another day".  And he's 100% right.  Because my mother has always been in charge of the holidays and she's always running around raging like a fucking maniac, to the point, I get horrible anxiety and hate the holidays.  When we've had them at home or anywhere when I am the one in charge?  It doesn't feel like a holiday at all.  

Wow.  I always literally thought I was doing something wrong, but as it turns out, my brain is wired in such way that the only thing that gets me in that holiday spirit is my mother's fucking rage.  

Geezus.  That's beyond fucked up.  But then again, how many of us feel that way?  I bet everyone reading this could look at their own family holiday experiences and see it's most likely the same for them.  

When our holidays are laid back and quiet?  It just feels like dinner.  Not a special meal.  How stupid is that?  That we have to be running around like chickens with our heads cut off or listening to someone else like a fool in order for it to feel special.  Without stress, how is it a holiday at all?  

Well, at least my mother was quiet 90% of the day.  Thank goodness.  Ever since I banned her from holidays, she boycotts them.  And I'd rather her do that then participate and act like a total asshole.  So that's something, right?  LOL  

Happy Easter, from an atheist who still makes ham and deviled eggs every year :)  

And why is this important on this particular blog?  Because my mother took my learning disability and literally turned it into a full-blown phobia, all because she used it as a way to make herself feel superior to me.  Even back when I was as young as six years old.  

It's called "dyscalculia", which is sort of like dyslexia with numbers (though it isn't quite like that).  And right now, I want to scream it from the rooftops that I have it!  Because for ALL of my childhood and into my adulthood, she's lorded it over me that I have hard time reading analog clocks, and a hard time doing simple calculations in math.  

So, growing up, my mother's favorite game on earth to play with me regularly was Yahtzee.  Guess why.  Just guess.  Go on.  I bet you know why.  Because for one, she'd tell me exactly where to put my dice on my score sheet (for controlling reasons) and for two, she'd watch me in the end add up my score and sit there and stare at me and get super frustrated and yell "Oh god!  C'mon, it's easy!!  Look!  Just do it!!  It's not that hard!!" and she'd eventually just do the math for me, because I'd be sitting there with a totally blank mind, frozen in my seat.  

The funny thing is, I am actually not bad at doing simple math, but math was so hard for me as a kid and as I aged, she just made it worse by giving me a total math phobia due to her shaming me when I'd pause to think in front of her when doing a math problem.  What I mean is that multiple digit math was harder, but adding any number by a single digit is pretty easy for me, once I taught myself how to do it properly and practiced that skill daily (I used addition tables and added one to the tens if the number was greater than 10).  But I grew up believing I couldn't do any math at all because my mother made me believe I couldn't.  

Also, analog clocks.  I still have a hard time with this, but as a kid?  Good grief!  She used to yell the same stuff at me all the time.  So even today, just looking at analog clocks, especially in her presence, makes me freak out and my mind will go blank.  Just like math used to do to me.  I am still not great at math, especially mental math (unless I keep practicing it), and I still go blank at times, but if I can remember the trick to doing it right, it's easier for me (but I still have issues at times).

My mother used to shame me about math and analog clocks in order to make herself feel smarter.  So, you know what I am going to do tomorrow???  Take that fucking analog clock out of the kitchen we have and donate it!!  There is no reason to have it, as we have a digital clock on the stove AND on the microwave.  And on our phones!  When we moved in with her in 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, she even started shaming me again about reading the clock!!  And about a ton of other stuff, too.  So man, I have to say, living with her has done nothing but retraumatize me from my childhood, over and over again (including yesterday's issue with her opening my door even though I kept yelling at her not to), even though I feel that sometimes I am healing so much of it, due to the fact I can stand up to her now.  But it's still all so triggering, especially when I stand up for myself and she refuses to listen to me and does whatever she likes anyways.

But right now?  At two o'clock in the fucking morning on April 15, 2022??  I feel kind of great.  Because now I finally know I am not dumb.  I am not stupid.  I am not just "bad at math".  I have a fucking learning disability!  And that means there is a name for what I have and why I've had such hard time in life with numbers and other things related, and other people have it too (check out this post from Wikipedia for all the different areas this affects).  

I have been so proud of myself a few different times in life with all the things my mother used to be mean to me about: 

• In twelfth grade, I used to bowl four times a day: three gym classes and then after school.  I got so good, I could nearly get perfect scores (I once got a 298, even though I didn't bowl like a professional bowler--I never learned to put spins on my ball or anything of the sort, I just throw it straight).  AND, this was the best part, my friends dedicated me as our team's score keeper!!  Me??  The math idiot??  Wow, this was a total honor and made me feel smart and normal for once in my life!  This was before computers did all the work.  And my calcultions were always 100% right and I could add up the numbers faster in my head than anyone could use a calculator to do it.  But this was because I was practicing it so many times a day, and eventually it became easy for me.  I can't do this now, because just like with dyslexia, if you practice, you get better.  But if you don't use it, you lose it.  Which really sucks.  But hey, it's proof I am not an idiot in math.  Well, basic ass early grade school math.  But hey, it's something LOL
• All my working life, I was a cashier.  Um, yeah, stupid, right?  I was so horrible at it!  But then as an adult, I got this game called "Brain Age" for the Nintendo DS (when that was a big thing) which had a game where you'd count back change.  And it taught me how to do it properly, and I became a whiz at it!  For the first time in my life, I was not only good at counting back change, but I was amazing at it!  Whoo hoo!!  Then I stopped playing the game, and lost it all.  Then, so many years later, my oldest son got a job as a cashier at PetSmart (last summer) and I had to teach him how to count back change.  I kept getting mixed up and messing up again, which brought me right back to being a kid (and a young adult), hearing my mother's voice, literally picking on me and treating me like I was an idiot.  What was wrong with me?  I could do this before, right?  I could do it instantly and wanted to teach my son how to do it instantly, too.  But I just couldn't.  What was going on??  Now I know.  I have fucking a learning disability that makes stuff like that hard for me.  Unless I practice it every single day, many times a day.  So I no longer need to feel stupid about it.  I feel sooooooo freaking relieved!!  FINALLY!
• A few years ago, I joined a bullet journaling group and reluctantly shared a pic of one my pages.  And I apologized for having such horrible handwriting.  Now, growing up, my teachers and my mother all picked on me for having bad handwriting.  Which I learned is a part of dyscalculia.  And everyone in the group said "What are you even talking about?  Your handwriting is gorgeous!"  And I was so confused.  What??  What did they mean?  I didn't have bad handwriting?  Then why did my mother, to that day, still look at what I'd write and squint her eyes and say "What does this say?  I can't read it???"  Nobody else had issues reading my handwriting, but she always did, for my entire life.  See, she had perfect handwriting, so, yet another thing she could lord over me and act like she was better at something than me about.  After they all said that to me, I stopped apologizing for my handwriting to people and starting learning to love the way I'd write.  I mean, it only took me like 40 years to get there.  But it's better than never, right? 
• Fuck clocks.  There is ZERO reason to still have analog clocks in this world.  ZERO.  Now our clock is going in the giveaway box!  Yay!!  Stupid clocks!
• And fuck Yahtzee!  I hate that game!! (just kidding, I still like it, as long as my mother is nowhere near me when I play it, which is hardly ever)
• Oh, she also shames my son for having the same issues with math and clocks as I do.  Now I can tell him what's wrong with both of us.  And we'll never have to use an analog clock again!  Yay!

I just yelled at my mother yesterday.  I can't say I shouldn't have, because I cannot fathom in what way I could let her do what she did and pretend like it was okay.  A normal person, yes, but then again, a normal person would not have done that.  But if I let my mother get away with something like this, she'd never stop.  She'd use it as an excuse to do it again.  And fucking shit, did it trigger the holy hell out of me.  

So, if you've been reading, you know that I have issues with her opening my door without permission.  As a child, she had ZERO respect for privacy and there were no locks in the house other than the bathroom.  I wasn't even allowed one on my bedroom door as a teen, as when I did get one, they removed my door entirely.  

The bathroom had this hole you could stick things into it and it would open, and she would shove metal skewers in there if she wanted to come on, thinking that all space was owned by her and she'll be damned if anyone had locks in her house!!  Once, as an adult, when I lived with her, she tried to get into my room and had a FUCKING FIT because it was locked and she ran around the house screaming like a lunatic about it.  I was almost 30.  WTF?  

Anyways, when we moved in here, she'd come into my room all the time constantly, even though I'm in my 40s.  Today, she said after knocking "I just need to open your door and show you something." I said "Just a minute!"  and she said "I won't look, I just want to show you this."  I said "NO, do not open my door, just a minute!"  She replied "Oh, I'm not looking.  Here, look at this!"  She shoved her plant into my room through the open door.  So I jumped up and shoved her plant back out the door and slammed the door shut.  I yelled "DO NOT OPEN MY DOOR!  I told you just a minute!  What on earth are you doing??!!"  She said "Well sorry," in her haughty voice.  "Everyone else opens your door."  I said "THEY DO NOT IF I TELL THEM JUST A MINUTE!  Everyone respects my privacy but you!!"  "Well sorry," she said in her stupid voice again.  And no, I was not going to let her get away with it.  "No, mom, you cannot do that.  If I say no, you have to listen to me.  Why can't you listen???"  "Sorry, mother!"  She yells back at me.  And there you go.  She thinks she has the right to do whatever she likes, whenever she likes. And when I ask her not to, then I am acting like someone who's bossing her around.  Nobody tells my mother what to do.  NOBODY.  Not her doctors.  Not her husband.  Not her parents.  And certainly not me.  

I am nothing more than an object to her.  I am not a person.  I am an extension of her.  Everyone is.  Now, she'd have never done that to my husband.  Never.  But see, she wants me to know she has a favorite and it's not me.  It never has been, even though I am her only child. But still, he's an object to her, too.  She uses him to get what she wants in life.  Which is to play her little games of "favorites and discardeds".  Nobody cares anymore.  Nobody wants to be her favorite.  Nobody cares who she likes or doesn't like them.  It's all moot.  How she feels about us has no relevance anymore.  So she can play her games, or not, it is of little consequence.  She's burned her bridges too many times over for anyone to be captured by her niceness when she's actually nice.  All of her compliments are fake.  All of her happy times are laced with an undercurrent of rage.  There is nothing left for her to do to do us.  Other than invade our god damned privacy.  

But I had to yell at her to let her know that it was NOT okay she did that, because if I didn't, it would go right back to how it used to be again.  

Now, if she just had opened my door to let a dog in?  I would not have been so mad.  I would have said nothing at all, but instead, would have locked the door for a bit until she let up again.  Just like before.  But this?  What in the holy hell?  This was right back to when we first moved in and she didn't just invade my privacy by coming into my room all the time, she blasted right through it like a fucking tornado.  To hear me yelling "Just a minute!" and "NO!" over and over again and still open my door and say it was okay she did it???  Goodness griefess.  That was some old school shit.  

Can I remind you (if you've read this before) that I literally had nightmares as a child about monsters busting through the doors to get me?  Which was due to both my mother, who busted through all locked and unlocked doors like the Kool-Aid man, and my father, who used to chase me around the house screaming "IF I COULD JUST GET MY HANDS ON YOU!" to beat my ass and I'd run to the bathroom to hide, because it was the only door that locked in the house.  I never had privacy in showers or getting dressed or really, anything, ever.  If I did try to get more privacy in the shower, my mother would tell me how stupid I was and how dumb it was I hung towels on our sliding glass doors, because you could see right through them.  So I had to be shamed for not wanting my parents to see my naked body.  And living here, she did the same thing.  Shamed us for putting locks on the bathroom doors, and then coming into my room while I was getting dressed, telling me as I was screaming for her to get out "You don't have anything I haven't seen before!!", as though she still owned my body at age 43, just as she did when I was 13 (or rather, always).  She never owned my body.  But she always made me feel like she did.  

I can't believe this is still happening.  I mean, I can.  She is who she is.  And nothing will ever change that.  She is a potato.  Plain and simple.  And I can't be surprised when a potato acts like a potato.  She will always, and forever, be that fucking potato she's always been, no matter how long she's been pretending otherwise.  I can't forget that.  Because when I do, it stresses me out.  But if I can just remember my #potatotheory, then it makes me feel better and less angry and/or shocked when she acts like one again.  

Potatoes, folks.  It's who they are.  Don't ever forget it. 

Our tale begins back several years ago, when my hubby's cousin, let's call her Spazoid, offered my husband a job at her new company.  They developed a drone that had been picked up by a government contract, and now needed actual people to work for them.  And my hubby is extremely qualified for many, many things.  And I cannot tell you what she was going to hire him for, because I honestly don't remember.  FINALLY, we were going to get out of poverty!  FINALLY, my hubby was going to get paid what he's worth!  FINALLY, our dreams of being normal Americans with normal pay with a normal place to live and a normal car were going to come true!  Actually, we did have a normal place to live and a normal car, but we could not afford either of them, and were living negative check to negative check. Which means were living on payday loans.  So the idea of my hubby working for a REAL job just made us all giddy with glee!

See, he started work at this new place when we first got together.  He even helped build the store.  He has a degree, but nobody was hiring, so he was stuck at this store.  Now this this store, was the new hot thing and was the top monthly grossing store of this chain in the entire country.  They were banking!  And yet, we were still living on food stamps and using our state's medical card.  

And we continued to live on both until 2020.  

So my hubby worked his ass off for the next twelve years (I can't work, due to my medical issues--and I don't qualify for disability, even though back then I did and had no idea!!  I am so angry about that, too, knowing I could have helped provide for our family and was told I couldn't, even though I could) only to make barely enough money to pay our bills. Then one day, he comes home in a un Uber with a box of stuff.  Apparently, they walked in and said "Sorry, we can't pay you anymore" and sent him home.  Just.  Like.  That.  

But that's in the future (it was just a few years ago, actually).  We're still talking back in the day when Spazoid offered my husband a job which was going to make our dreams come true.  

Until it wasn't.  

She stopped talking to us and my husband was getting worried and started trying to find ways to contact her.  And she acted annoyed with us, even though he only asked about the job once.  And that's when other people started contacting us and telling us that she was fucking everyone over and not paying them.  Apparently, there never was a job for my husband.  And she was taking all the money and ditching everyone, even those who did work for her.  

What we didn't know was that Spazoid?  Was a total narcissistic conman with horrible emotional issues, who was teetering on the edge of insanity.  And I mean total insanity.  

So that was the tale of the job that wasn't.  

Then we have my cousin who, a few years later, offered us a place to live (due to all our poverty after my hubby got laid off from that job I talked about above) for free, that turned out to be non-existent, too.  And then acted angry with me for the entire thing when it was all on her (though I shouldn't have believed her).  

But that's not our story today.  But I'm including it because it's similar and it's for the timeline here.

So then after we came back from that horrific mess with my cousin, my hubby took a very low-paying job at a company for insurance claims.  He worked up the ranks there in the six months he worked there, but then found a job as an ambulance dispatcher, which rocked but paid shit (he worked 3 days on, 4 days off, 4 days on, 3 days off--it was majestic!).  But then the pandemic hit, and his business went under and he was out of a job again.  But then a year later, he got a job where he works now.  And just like that, we could afford our bills for the first time in our lives.  

And, within six months, he was given a promotion and now makes close to $50,000 a year.  Which is like rich to us, as we used to make less than $30,000.  And then he joined his company's sustainability program, which he loves.  And he helps the leader with all sorts of things, such as writing the company's blah blah blah and developing programs and writing the company's sustainability newsletter.  I say blah blah blah, because I have no idea what it's called, but it's something fancy sounding and important LOL  So he said to the leader, we'll call her "Gigantic Douche",  "Hey, do you think there are any jobs in this program?"  Because he'd rather work for something important that makes a difference, than work with people who come to work to get a paycheck (he's a manager who wants to make a difference in the employee's lives, not someone who just wants to yell at people when they mess up, like his boss does).  And at first, she said "No, it's only me."  Which was where she should have left it.  But then, she continued.  And here is the exact conversation they had, word for word, which I copied down from his text conversation: 

Hubby: "Also I was wondering are there other positions in the program?"

Gigantic Douche: "As of right now we only have volunteers.  But I am the only full-time dedicated resource.  Would definitely be amazing to have some more support and think this idea would be welcomed.  I'll raise this to the head of HR the next time I talk to her and circle back on this item near your one year anniversary.  Were there any particular areas or titles you were interested in?  Would definitely love have you help out with (all sorts of duties she listed)."

Hubby: "I would like to be a (insert title here, I can't remember)."  

Gigantic Douche: "Okay great, let's circle back on this.  I don't see why not! (smiley face)"

Hubby: "Wow, you really made my night, thanks so much!"

Gigantic Douche: "Thank YOU for all your contributions.  Very glad to have you on the team."  

So, he can't move up in his job until his anniversary is up, which is in a couple weeks.  Which is what she was talking about.  So on Monday of this week (it's Wednesday now), he had a meeting with her and he asked her about it, since that's what she told him to do.  And their conversation went like this: 

Hubby: "Oh, by the way, my anniversary is coming up in two weeks.  I was wondering if you had heard back from the head of HR about the position we talked about?"

GD: "Um...you mean, like, more than a volunteer basis, like a full-time thing?"  (she said this really slowly)

Hubby: "Yeah, remember?  We talked about this." 

GD: "Yeah, I kind of remember...what exactly was it again?" (she says in a dum-dum voice)

Hubby: "Yeah, remember it was the position so I could help you out with the work full-time instead of only in my off-time?"  

GD: "Oh, right.  I think I remember that...hmm.  When I mentioned it to the head of HR, she you'd basically be doing my job.  But, maybe you could ask your current supervisor to do some sort of hybrid thing?" (again, the dum-dumb voice)

Hubby: "Oh.  Um, okay.  I guess so." 

Um, talk about gaslighting!!  There is zero way she "forgot" about their conversation, as she talked to the head of HR and remembered doing so LOL  Oh geezus, I hate hate hate when people act like they don't remember things that they clearly do.  Now, sometimes people don't, but you can tell the difference.  And this woman?  Was lying out her ass.  That's such a narcissistic behavior and the funny part is that they all think we buy it!  And we just don't.  Because those of us who know better, see this as a HUGE red flag for narcissism.  

She was trying to make it sound like my husband was asking for a handout, when it was her idea that they create a job for him in this program.  He had no idea if there were already jobs, so that's why he was asking.  He didn't ask anyone to make one for him.  But she offered and acted like it was an amazing thing and got his hopes up.  Oh, and by the way, did I mention she's 22 years old?  Yeah.  That made it even worse LOL

Sorry 22 year olds, but he's almost 40 and to have a kid (who's younger than our oldest child) fuck him around like this just makes it that much worse.  Though, at the time, we had no idea she was that young.

Well, he got over it quickly, as my hubby didn't join the program to work with her and wasn't even thinking about getting a job in that department to begin with.  His goal is HR, which he'd be amazing at (he went to school for HR during the pandemic after he was laid off from the ambulance place).  So that's still his goal and since he's up for being able to move up soon, he's actively looking for HR jobs at his work (and outside of his work, too, but he knows ALL the HR people at his work, due to the sustainability program, and he'd like to stay there if he can).  

Also know, that his career is always his choice, and all of this stuff is his idea.  I don't know why I feel the need to add this in, but many wives control their husbands and make them feel like they always have to be making more money and I am soooooo not like that.  As long as my hubby is happy, I don't care what he does :) 

But anyways, the moral of the story here is always look a gift horse in the mouth.  ALWAYS.  Because most gift horses are offered by narcissists and they will rip those gifts away before those gifts come to fruition.  It's happened to me so many times, and to my hubby and kids, too.  And it makes for a life filled with disappointment.  So remember this, if you remember nothing else from this post (or really, it's the only thing to remember from this post) ALWAYS LOOK A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH!  Always, always, always!!!  

That way you can expect the worst, and hopefully get the best.  And if you don't, then you won't be disappointed.  

This is how I've learned to live my life.  And this time?  We weren't that disappointed.  Just annoyed.  

Here is a picture that depicts this for you.  You may think at first they're real, but alas, they are masks.  Fucking gift horses and their dirty little mouths.  

TRIGGER WARNING: sexual abuse, rape, sexual assault

This should be the title of a new memoir of mine.  Maybe it will be.  No, not the trigger warning.  The title of the post.  

But anyways, my cat is in heat.  Vet appointments now are hard to come by, so they can't get her in until May, which super sucks.  My cat is so very annoying, and I wish we could have made our last appointment, but alas, we both had migraines and could not get up that early to go that day.

But now, my mother is obsessed with talking about it, the cat and her wild ways of yowling at everything with her butt hiked in the air.  Which makes me cringe to high heaven.  To the point, I actually get angry.  My son says "Who cares?  Just ignore it."  But I try to explain to him, something from my childhood has always made me physically sick to hear her talk about sex or periods or anything to do with vaginas or penises or anything of the sort (she once took a spread-eagle picture of my son after I was changing his diaper, which emphasized his genitalia and I am surprised they didn't call the police on us after developing it--I found that pic and burned it and all the copies of it, too, because WTF?).  I've always felt this way and I do not know why.  It makes me feel the same sort of sick when I can sense a man has ill intentions towards me sexually.  I just want to crawl out of my skin and it gives me a stomachache.  

The body does not forget.  

What does it not forget, in this instance?  I have no clue.  I mean, many things, but with my mother, I can't place it exactly.  A little, but not exactly.  But my body has a physical reaction to her when she talks about all things sexual.  Once, last summer, she tried to tell me all about her BFF's sexual exploits and I got really angry with her.  I said "That's really disgusting!  Why would I want to know that?  Sick!!" And went back into the house.  She was angry at me all day for that.  But it made me want to hurl hearing her talk like that.  

I am not a prude.  I openly talk about sexual things all the time with my family, as do they.  The kids (adult kids) joke around about girls and porn, and I educate them on sex addiction, which can come from watching too much porn--though that's porn addiction, technically.  And it's a consensual conversation, one which they brought up yesterday.  If me talking about sexual stuff bothered them, I'd never bring it up again.  Because I respect people's needs and wishes, unlike my mother.  But we all talk openly about that kind of stuff, we always have.  But I didn't grow up that way.  My father was severely addicted to porn, and my parents treated sex as though it was for perverts and my mother always said that my father was the biggest pervert of them all.  And I was a whore for having sex with my boyfriend of two years as a teenager.  That's what they told me.  And that's what my mother will still say to this day, that I was a whore back then, even though what I did with my body is nobody's business but mine.

But even before all that, I could not physically or emotionally stand hearing my mother talk about vaginas or periods or anything sexual at all.  It made me sick.  I also never wanted her to touch me.  Kids grow up without hugs from their mother and say "Oh wow, I wish my mother would have hugged me."  Not me.  I could have hugged my father all day every day and I wouldn't care, but if my mother got near me, I'd cringe and be physically repulsed.  I do not know why.  I know I wasn't always like that.  I don't remember her ever touching me but I have seen pictures of her holding me as a little kid and stuff like that.  But at a certain age, it seemed to have stopped.  I don't know why.  I don't know if it was me pushing her away or she just never wanted to touch me.  Hugging her makes me want to puke, it always has.  And it physcially hurts my body.

The thing is: I honestly think my father molested me as a child (or at least did some inappropriate things).  Because I remember some really shady shit he did to me.  But at the same time, my mother did some shady shit to me, too.  And my uncle (my mother's sister's husband), who literally being in the same room as him physically repulsed me.  I could be around my mother, and even really close, without feeling bad.  It was just hugs from her that made me cringe.  But then there's my grandfather, who became obsessed with the little girl we babysat for, who then started treating me like total shit after she came around.  And another girl we babysat for said that he (my grandfather) showed her his penis.  And my mother slapped me for sleeping next to my kids when I lived with her, as though I would molest them because we aren't the same sex (she's fucking insane, I'm telling you), which leads to wonder if her father molested her or her sister and she knew about it (my therapist at the time wondered that, too).  And then we have my other uncle who could never keep his hands off any child.  Not in a perverted way, but deep down, do we really know?  An obsession with children usually means something sinister and strange (Lewis Carroll--I mean Charles Dodgson, anyone?).  

I honestly cannot rule out almost anyone in my family for having done bad things to me (I even had memories of a boy cousin touching me, though I can't be sure what exactly happened).  I do know that growing up I have been grabbed, manhandled, sexually assaulted and raped, all repeatedly, all by different boys/men.  People who were molested as young children make prime targets for getting sexually assaulted later in life.  We get primed for that shit as kids and end up not seeing the red flags until it's too late.  We learn not to tell, or that "this is how men just are".  So we say nothing.  And it never stops happening.

Also, we eventually become dysregulated and make crazy choices as we get older, which gets us into bad situations that can hurt us.  They call it "acting out", but in reality, we're just trying to deal with brains that have ZERO idea of how to deal with continued abuse and the chaoticness of life, due to the abuse we've both received and can still be receiving.  So our brains get angry, and act a little manic sometimes.  Some of us cut ourselves, some of us drink or do drugs to quiet that dysregulation down, and others act out sexually or become completely shut off to sexual things as a whole.  It's not our fault our brains are like this.  We are doing our best to make sense of a dysregulated brain that is all over the place.  

So, because of this, as we get older, we can get ourselves into situations that can hurt us.  I mean why not?  Our parents put us in positions to hurt us all the time.  So why should we care?  This is the mantra of the abused teenager (and sometimes as adults, too).  We were told we were worthless, so how can we have any worth?  I learned early on as a child that my worth as a girl and a woman was what was between my legs.  And everything since has been proving that fact over and over and over again.

"Raped?" she said with a roll of her eyes, while sipping her hot coffee.  "Shay was sleeping with everyone back then, so who knows?"  This is what my mother said in 2013 (I think that's the right year) when I confronted her in a letter about how she ignored me when I told her I was raped when I was fourteen.  FOURTEEN.  I was not sleeping around at FOURTEEN.  I was a fucking virgin whose 19-year-old boyfriend (a boy they allowed me to go with, even though I wasn't comfortable being alone with him) trapped her in his bedroom and refused to let her leave.  I was a girl who knew he had homemade machetes and knives everywhere.  So I just laid down and did as I was told.  But that's not what my mother heard when I told her about it a few years prior to 2013, when I was on my way to a rape counselor (who was kind of bad at her job, by the way).  I asked my mother if she ever wondered why I was seeing a therapist and what kind of therapist it was.  And so I blurted it out it was a rape counselor and I was raped at fourteen, and she ignored me and changed the subject.  But bascially telling everyone I was a whore was what mother said to her BFF Christmas, when she had Christmas read my letter OUT LOUD to the other two women in their gang who were sitting at the table with them: Valentine's (who I used to call BM on this blog) and Easter.  All four sat at their table, after I had my HUGE blowout with my mother, in which she lied to my face and told me my father never hit us and blah blah blah and how my entire childhood was made up (the abuse and whatnot).  That's when I found out she was a narcissist.  But still, I was in my 30's and she was STILL saying I was a whore for having lots of boyfriends when I was a teenager.  Then my mother came out with the fact she was raped at age fourteen (and never brought up the fact I was), and now she denies ever saying that to Christmas about my letter, that I was "sleeping with everyone back then", which is something she can do because both Valentine's and Easter are now dead, so they can't back up Christmas.  So now, all she has to do is say Christmas is a liar, which is what she did.  Last year she screamed when I brought it up "I NEVER SAID THAT!! I WOULD NEVER!  I WAS RAPED, TOO!!"  Liar.  I mean, I have no idea if she was raped, but she definitely said that about me.  I wonder if she ever thinks I believe her?

I don't.  Because, duh.  

So yeah, my mother has a horrible track record for all things sexual.  Especially with raising me.  When I got into my dad's porn collection (and it was a COLLECTION, let me tell you) when I was around twelve, she called me all sorts of names.  She said "So, you like this shit just like your father?" she'd spit at me, as though the words made her mouth taste like vomit.  "You're nasty!!  That's so disgusting!"  Also, as a child, if she caught me masturbating, she'd slap my hands and tell me I'd never have children when I was old and said I was gross and nasty and disgusting.  I mean, why would I ever be okay with her talking about sexual things around me now with all of that?  But it goes beyond shame.  Because sex for her was 100% about shame.  So she tried to shame me, too.  But the feeling I get is sickness, and putridity, not shame.  Like I want to crawl out of my skin or barf or do both.   

I also get that feeling with men who want to do bad things to me.  I've always been able to tell.  And I was always right.  Always.  It used to be just older men, but one day we had this guy over weekly to play games with us (we play those kinds of board games you get at game stores, not Walmart, so they take hours to play).  And one day, I just couldn't do it anymore.  He started make me feel sick.  Even though it had been a year since we started playing with him.  Though not in our home, we usually played at friend's house, and then we switched to having this one guy over at our house, and only after playing with him twice did I start getting that feeling with him.  He made me sick to be around so I would got hide in our room until he left and eventually, we stopped having him over.

I remember this feeling started when my dad had his sailor friends over to hang out drinking at night, and I'd be in bed, trying to sleep.  But instead, I'd actually be awake, terrified someone was going to come into my room to rape me (how I knew what that was, I do not know).  

Then I got that feeling around my uncle.  

Then I got that feeling around the guy who wanted me to babysit for him.  And he did try.  Eventually.  I was fifteen.

Then I got that feeling around my neighbor who was a priest (I recently wrote to his niece and told her what he did, which I wrote about around Christmastime on here).  And he tried to press his leg up against mine during a holiday meal under the table, and when I pulled away, he did it again.

Throughout the years, growing up, I got that feeling around various boys and/or men, who all tried to sexually assault me or did sexually assault me.  

I have never been wrong about that feeling.  

And I get that feeling when my mother talks about anything of a sexual nature.  

Maybe it's not her.  Maybe it's my body mixing up anger and shame?  But it doesn't do that normally.  Just for her.  And just when she talks about sexual shit.  Every single other person I've had this feeling with (all men), I've been right about.

Maybe one day I'll be able to pinpoint what exactly it is.  Or maybe I won't.  I just know that I don't like it.  When she goes on and on and on about the cat in heat all how all the boy cats want to fuck her (they are all fixed, btw).  And how her other friend, who I used to call "Horny Skeletor" in my memoir (but I changed her name) who's in her 80's and brags about giving blowjobs to her younger boyfriend.  And the next time she talks about any of that shit, I am going to say that's gross and to be quiet about it.  We ALL know the cat is in heat.  We can't not know it.  I wish she were spayed already.  It's kind of sad to see my poor little girl go from a carefree little kitten one day, to a batshit crazy love machine who's tries to get the dogs, the cats, and the kitchen cabinets all to service her the next (though it's almost been a week now she's been in heat).  So I don't need my mother to go on about it.  

Also today, I came home after taking my son with me to go look for living room chairs (we didn't find any) and I found his underwear hanging on my doorknob.  My mother put it there.  For what reason, I do not know.  But she has some kind of strange thing with underwear and doing dumb things with them.  Maybe people don't like that, mother, when you're touching a piece of clothing that touches other people's genitals!  And it's not like she does the laundry, I do.  So it makes me feel icky when she makes a HUGE deal about people's underwear.  Once, right after we moved in here, my underwear got mixed up with her clothes and she pulled them out and made fun of how HUGE they were while throwing them around.  So that makes me so uncomfortable, too.  

For the most part, I just plain hate everything she does.  And this type of shit just is the icing on the disgusting cake.  


I just hate when people are sexually inappropriate.  Especially people who are not "all there" and cannot fathom just how far they are taking it when they are talking about something sexual or fucking around with people's underwear.  

We have a neighbor, D-Man.  He's got autism.  But he also has a shitty little shitzu who bites me and isn't fixed.  But D-Man always devolves the conversation into talk about how his dog humps all of his toys (the dog's toys, not D-Man's...though maybe his toys, too?).  I keep telling him "Get him fixed, he really needs to get fixed." But he won't listen.  And I don't want to talk to D-Man about his dog's sexual antics.  It's gross.  And I am afraid the conversation will turn into something else.  Something wholly inappropriate.  Because men scare me most of the time.  More so, men who talk about sexual things openly and freely with neighbors scare me.  And men who don't understand sex in a normal way scare me.  I've been almost attacked (and I would have been, had my coworker not walked in right as the guy was running at me) by a mentally disabled man who came to my work to hurt me.  I am autistic myself, but I know there are many levels, and lower the level, the less the person understands about how inappropriate things are to say or do with certain people.  But this guy?  Was a mentally disabled predator.  He was coming into my store, thinking I was alone, on purpose, to hurt me. 

Then, I was sexually assaulted by an autistic kid in my apartment building, who was allowed to watch shows with lots of sex in them, which turned him into a raging little crazy hornball psycho.  Once, he knew I was taking a shower and broke into my apartment to hurt me.  He was twelve!!  Luckily I jumped out the shower to barricade the door, as I heard him come in and call my name.

My mother was accosted by a lower-functioning autistic kid in our neighborhood who came into her house and shoved a tabled into her stomach, which ended up shoving her into the cabinets behind her (and still, she was going to allow that kid into her house--though he soon after wrote her an email and asked if he could stick his finger in her dog's butt--he was 20 and lived on his own and had shitty, shitty parents). 

I am not afraid of mentally disabled people, but I do not like being around those who do not get how to act in society and are left to their own devices to work all that on their own.  My ex-husband's uncle was severely mentally and physically disabled and sexually abused my sister-in-law when she was a kid.  So, I am not keen on having our neighbor hang out in our yard bothering me when I am working or sitting out there.  I don't know how far his talking about how his dog takes out his sexual urges on all of the pillows and toys will take him.  Or what that means for me.  I already had the crazy man up the street sexually harass me as I walked past his house (I call him crazy, because he's been on the national news before when he was off his meds and he tried to do horrible things to the entire neighborhood--but this was before we moved in, but he's still here and he's still crazy), and now I don't walk anywhere near his house anymore.  He still stares every time we drive by, which scares the shit out of me.  But then again, he stares at everyone, and records them on his 500 video cameras in his yard.  Yay for living in neighborhoods with neighbors.  Whoo hoo.

Maybe that's why my mother bothers me so much?  She's dumber than a box of rocks and when she talks about sexual stuff, she goes overboard, and I am not sure where she'll take it.  Then again, I am never sure where she'll take anything, these days.  

I don't know.  Well, I've written WAY too much on this subject.  I could write more and most likely will in my memoir ("Diary of a....").  So I'll just leave you with this:  

Being a woman sucks.  But so does being a man.  Men get sexually abused all the time, too.  My husband has had a woman at work fondle him and do things to him that he can't prove was done on purpose, and she continues to do it to this day.  She's very crafty, that one.  He's also been touched (like on the butt) by three different adult women when he was a teen.  Two teachers and a youth director at his old church.  For a man, that seems like a lot of butt touching and fondling.  But maybe it's normal for men to be assaulted regularly too, but they just don't realize it?  But for those of us, like me, if it's countable, it's a pretty low number.  As I cannot count the amount of times I've been sexually assaulted and/or raped.  It sounds crazy to say I can't count the times I've been raped, but if you've been in any kind of abusive relationship, you know what I am talking about.  And I've been in my fair share of those.  I've even been raped in non-abusive relationships, because men are not taught enough about consent, but then again, neither are women, so sometimes we don't realize what's happening to us is wrong, yet it feels so very, very wrong.  But I can't say what my husband has (and is) going through isn't bad.  Of course it is.  Whether your assaults are countable or not, they are all horrible.  We live in a fucked world full of sexual deviants who's goal is to hurt as many people as possible.  And I really hope that one day my husband can go to his job and not only get that bitch fired, but get enough men to come forward and get her put in jail.  But the law does not favor victims of sexual assault.  Neither do workplace laws.  And especially not for men.  I mean, who would take him seriously if he came forward?  

"Oh, this lady touched my hand at work."  "Um, so?" 

 "Oh this lady touched her butt to my butt."  "She said it was an accident, aren't you overreacting?"

Can you imagine it?  But if that were man making a woman uncomfortable, they'd be all over it, fearing of the woman suing.  

Anyways, I'm going to go ignore my cat who's in heat (Oh, did you know?  My cat is in heat...my mother will totally tell you about if you talk to her, and all about how the boy cats all want to "possess" her, which is totally fucking weird) and go play "Sea of Thieves" with my kids, because that game kicks ass.  Oh, and also, in my next post, we'll learn all about the narcissist who runs the sustainability program at my hubby's work who recently fucked him out of a promotion.  Yay.