My mother carefully cultivates other people's perception of me.  Even now with dementia.  She keeps up the lies, knowing which of her friends she's told what about me, and makes sure she keeps that person thinking the same ideas about me as they've always have.  

Take her BFF Christmas, for example.  She's made her believe I am lazy, I am an overreactor, I am a liar, and that I am selfish.  At one point, she made her believe I was so much of all of these things that I held her hostage in our own home.  Even though the reason I wasn't letting her leave was because we were on lockdown from our state, Christmas almost called elder abuse services on me because of it.

This is why my mother is only friends with idiots.  A smart person would say to my mother "Your daughter is keeping you safe.  You should thank her."  

But she is friends with smart people.  But she doesn't tell those people the same lies about me.  She knows damn well they won't believe her.  Well, at least on that on particular thing.  She does have my entire family believing I am horrible and that I am severely mentally ill (even though deep down, they know better, because they know me and they allow me to take care of my mother--if they truly believed I was totally insane, they wouldn't have let us move in together--or would they?--shows how much they care about her well being if they think I am insane and let me take care of her LOL).  

They think I am insane because once I wrote a blog post about my entire family being assholes.  And they found it.  I only stated the 100% truth about my life, but they're all narcissists so they all think I literally insane for writing it.  Sigh. 

Anyways, some of those family members have enough smarts to know that I kept my mother indoors during lockdown because dat bitch is crazy and never keeps herself safe.  Like, ever.  So, she didn't bitch to them about it, because she knew better.  She only complains to the ones who will believe her. 

And she still keeps her BFF Christmas believing I am a lazy asshole who doesn't do anything, other than cook for her.  

Here is something I noticed-she will tell C that she has a personal cook: me.  But never once has she ever said "Wow, last night Shay cooked the most delicious dinner!"  Or "Wow, sometimes Shay cooks three meals: one especially for me and my dietary needs (haha she'd never say that, but it is what I do, including making sure each piece of food is soft enough for her toothless ass), one for her and Mr. Brooks, and one for the kids, as they are on a special diet.  I can't beleive she does so much work!". (haha she'd never say that, unless it was in mock "surprise").  Or "Shay is such a good cook!  You should come over and eat with us sometime!"  Or anything like that at all.  She always tells her I am the only person who cooks (though I'm not, my kids cook all the time, like tonight, my youngest made leek/mushroom soup from scratch), but never says what I cook or how I cook.  Her schtick used to be "she cooks, and I do all the dishes!"  But then I made her stop washing dishes because she used to dig scrubbies out of the trash and wash them with them (fucking YUCK!).  So now she never says much about me at all.  Which, I guess, is a good thing. 

Yeah, she stopped talking shit about me when I started calling her out on it (and saying I could hear her because she talks so loudly). Thank goodness.  But she never ever talks good things about me.  

And that's because she wants Christmas to think I am a dirty asshole.  She has to keep up the facade.  

Funny, I grew up in filth.  Like actual filth.  My house stunk and was so gross that my mother's go-to saying to guests was "Don't take off your shoes, your socks will turn black!".  And she wasn't wrong.  My mother didn't clean, she put things away, stuffed behind closed doors, drawers, and closets and pretended she was clean.  Even though every surface was sticky and smelly and yellow.  It was disgusting.  But she sure loved to pretend she was the cleanest housewife in the world.  

Oh, she did the dishes each night, too.  That's it. 

But she loves to make everyone around her believe I was/am just plain nasty because I have ADHD (and I'm very creative) and I was/is (though I am better than I used to be) cluttered.  Or because we didn't always do our dishes every single night and still don't.  Also, I am lazy (even though I do almost all the laundry in the house, I do all the grocery shopping and cooking-again, sometimes my kids do, too, I do yardwork and take care of everyone' appointments and pay all the bills, etc.) and I don't give two shits about her (even though I do everything my stupid power to protect her from herself and make sure her meds are right and blah blah blah everything else).  It's not just Christmas she told this stuff too, but other two of her old posse are dead, so I guess they don't count anymore.  But they died believing I was a total asshole.  And both were dumber than a box of rocks and worshipped the ground she walked upon, just like Christmas does.  If she told C that she farted cupcake-scented farts?  C would gladly stick her nose up my mother's ass begging her for a smell.  

Here's the deal: I know my mother is like this.  I know if she does change, it's for her own selfish purposes.  The only reason my mother doesn't really talk too much shit about me anymore is because she's too scared to.  She knows that C will tell me.  She likes C thinking bad things about me.  But she's careful in what she says.  Her insults and jabs about me are quick short bursts and then she takes them back right away or flat out denies them in order to gaslight C.  It's screwy.  But it's enough to keep bad ideas about me in C's head.  It's very purposeful.  Like C will ask if I cleaned something and my mother will do a quick high-pitched laugh, as though it was the funniest thing ever for C to ask that and then when C asks questions about it more, mother will change the subject.  Sometimes the subject change is obvious, as though its done on purpose for dramatic effect, but other times it just looks like my mother lost her train of thought.  And she didn't.  She just wants C to run with it in her own mind (and she will and my mother knows this) without my mother having to elaborate to get herself into hot water if it comes up later to my attention.  She can easily explain a "laugh" away.  But she can't explain words away so easily.  That takes some word salad and whole boatload of lies.  

Like I said, she carefully curates my image to others.  But more than that, she carefully curated my own image to me.  She's made me believe I am lazy, incapable, stupid, and not worthy of love.  Why would anyone do that to their own child?  I know it's because she feels those things about herself, but what the fuck is so wrong with the brains of these assholes that they make their own kids feel the same way?  

I have dyscalculia.  It's like dyslexia for numbers (but not quite).  And as a kid, I was made to believe I was a fucking idiot at math and reading analog clocks (because mother is an analog clock expert, did you not know that?--well, now you do).  I ended up with a legit math phobia because of it.  And she'd choose to put me in positions to have to do math in front of her (like play her favorite game Yahtzee) so I'd struggle and she could pick on me for it.  The same goes for clocks.  

Can you believe in 2020 when we moved in together in this house, she literally started doing that again?  Made me read a clock in front of her and brought out her old "C'mon Shay, what does it say?" bullshit all over again?  It was like she wanted to go back when I was a child and she thought she could abuse me all over again (it was so much more than just clocks, though, she brought back EVERYTHING she abused me with as a child).  I was 43 years old!!  

I didn't find out I had dyscalculia until 2022.  That was a fucking relief!  I wasn't stupid at all, I have a god-damned learning disability.  And yet, she had all her friends believing when I was a kid that I fucking stupid.  

She had me believing that, too.  

So, I am going to curate my own image from now on.  Because fuck her and insecurities.  I get that C is an idiot.  I know this.  And I do not owe her anything, nor do I need to teach her about who I really am.  If she doesn't know by now, then she'll never know.  But I will no longer stand for letting my mother curate my image.  In 2021, my mother sent out Xmas cards to our family and her friends and I took the ones being sent to my family, opened them, and then signed me and my hubby's and kids' names, too.  I wanted those fuckers to believe we were a united front.  So guess what?  None of them sent my mother cards in 2022.  HA!  They only want her attention when they think she's against me.  When I am here?  they have no need for her.  I refuse to let my mother, or my family, act as though I don't live here.  Because fuck them all.  If my mother can eat my goddamned holiday food?  Then she can damn well let me sign our household's holiday cards!  Even if she doesn't know I am doing so.  Ha! 

Also, I will be talking to C soon, and I will be bringing up a few things that need to be talked about.  Again, I am not letting my mother curate my fucking image anymore.  C is too stupid not to believe her, but I am going to set her straight.  Granted, it's dumb to do this, I know, but it really bugs me, because C used to be my friend.   I guess I was just a friend of convenience, as I know she's a reverse narcissist and as soon as my mother only had her left as a friend, C went hardcore into my mother's orbit.  I know it's useless.  But it will make me feel better.  

Thank goodness my mother has ZERO friends in this neighborhood.  None of them think bad things about me due to my mother's meddling, unlike our old neighborhood.  Now my neighbors just think bad things of me because of me LOL  

Also, I am revamping my own self-image, too.  Or at least I am trying to.   I am pushing myself to do think in new ways about myself and to do new things that will help me feel better about myself, too.  It's kind of terrifying.  But it's necessary.  

Because fuck that.  I am not the things my mother has led me to believe I am.  Neither are you.  So, let's move forward, as best we can, in 2023 and beyond, into the realm of "Who am I and who will I be without her abuse?"  Because they don't matter anymore.  Life is too fucking precious to allow some potato to have that kind of control over us anymore.  

Sigh.  Well, let's see how this goes.