And maybe that's OK.

It has been years since I spent any length of time with my mother, you might recall I spent 3 days at her holiday house a year ago and almost lost my mind. The thing is a year later and with what I think are more refined and defined boundaries, I have no tolerance for it, and am finding any kind of detachment almost impossible. I know it's almost over now, she goes away for the weekend and I will have moved out before she gets back and I am going to have to limit contact after that and I think I am OK with that now.. But I have stopped living with A, who would mostly stay in his room and ignore me and once a fortnight or so get drunk and make life unbearable for a day or 2 but mostly he left me alone, and it strikes me that my mother never, ever, ever stops and aside from one night where she was sloshed and complimentary, she has been really awful and the contempt has been really awful and hurtful. She cannot stop badgering people, it's like a mental illness and perhaps it is. I have given up and am avoiding her as much as possible now. I suspect she cannot stand the fact that I won't go back to desperately trying to appease her, I don't think she has any idea of how to relate to me now that I do not bow and scrape and apologise constantly, but she's clearly very agitated and very upset over everything I say or do or even what she perceives that I might be thinking. I can't tell you how many accusations have begun with "well I suppose you think blah blah blah". I can't abide this sort of nonsense anymore, I'm sorry but it's so childish and it infuriates me and I get angry and have to walk away. No, I don't just sit there thinking about her and it really makes me angry that she is constantly trying to tell me what I think, I don't think I ever realised how childish it is and how ridiculous it was that I spent so much of my life trying to reason with it and sooth it better. When she says "I suppose you think" I have come to see that what she means is, "This is what I feel guilty about and I am going to tell you why I shouldn't feel guilty about it but I'm going to say it's you that is thinking it and then argue with you and make you feel terrible for the thing I feel guilty about which has actually got nothing to do with you at all but lets just say it does. Now sit there and take it and say you are sorry for my guilt so I can absolve myself and hand my bad feelings to you to deal with". That is a bit of a mouthful I guess but its the same thing over and over and it really isn't something I can buy into anymore. Deal with your own guilt lady, I have my own stuff to deal with.

So I went for a walk with daughter this evening and as soon as we were away from the house daughter let it all out...how grandma just badgers her non-stop and picks on everything she says and does and then when she finally snaps then grandma acts all hurt and she feels guilty and she feels so bad for being snappy but its unbearable and she doesn't know what to do, she snapped and grandma and now she feels so bad and thinks grandma is upset with her......yes I know that cycle, it's never ending. I let daughter talk it out, I assure her it's OK and that we do things very differently in our home and that it is very hard to adjust to a completely "different" way of relating....and I remind her of how wonderful it will be to have a home just for us where we make the rules and no badgering, passive aggressive nonsense or hysterical bull-poo will be allowed. I didn't want her feeling guilty about losing patience with my mother because that's the trap I fall into, then I try to placate her and it keeps it rolling along...I did tell daughter that I think grandma has been in these habits for many many many years now and it is probably automatic behaviour to her now and not done with the intent to drive us insane but because we don't live with her or see her often, it clashes with our somewhat relaxed and calm way of relating to each other and dealing with life's adventures and obstacles. Everyone is different, we are just used to a more peaceful "live and let live"approach... it's different here, this is what they are used to and they don't realise how stressful it is to other people....well that was the best I could think of to tell her, ugh. She hates the city, hates how rude everyone is, hates the crowds and everything is dirty and smelly she says, she cannot wait to get back to our side of town where there are fewer people and everyone is usually nice...oh me too, me too.

So anyway the point is it's really going very badly between my mother and I and the more I try to make myself be calm and detached the more I find I keep snapping; I haven't been cruel or shouted but several times I have held my hand up to her and said in an angry fed up tone "you need to stop, you stop this, stop badgering me please, I can't hear myself think" and walked away. She hasn't taken that very well at all but she gets in my face and just goes and goes and goes like a freaking pitbull about the most trivial of things and stuff that just isn't any of her business! No matter how hard I try to be cheerful and discuss happy or interesting things instead she just turns every single thing into what I have done wrong and why that is a terrible burden to her. EVERYTHING is about her. I lost it after dinner tonight when daughter mentioned that something of hers was broken and straight away grandma started harping about how "well you'd better not put it in OUR bin, there's no room in OUR bin", I had spilled something on my shirt earlier and she saw me do it and said "I suppose you think you will be using MY washing machine do you, well I thought you would use the laundromat while you were here (all of my siblings use the washing machine, my sister doesnt even live here but she comes home to wash, mother is beside herself because I have used her washing machine 3 times. How dare I?". Then I received a text message to say a lady I don't much like has been trying to contact me and as soon as she heard me discussing it she started screaming "Well she better not turn up here, I'm not kidding Melissa I don't want your weird friends turning up here" she got absolutely hysterical and was pointing her finger and stabbing the air at me and virtually frothing at the mouth over this imaginary situation she cooked up. She's never met the woman I was talking about and had heard only that I was not happy that she had been asking for my number because she's very annoying. The way mother reacted was as if she overheard me making arrangements to throw a party for escapees from the maximum security prison. I ended up having a panic attack myself in the end, heart palpitations, couldn't breathe, hands shaking for ages afterwards, whew. It was not good, I stopped having those over 6 months ago I thought. I find this sort of behaviour really stressful and intollerable now yet I grew up with it and lived with it or the first 15 years of my life. It is SO STRESSFUL!!!!

So anyway I could go on all night complaining and citing examples but really what it comes down to is, I had an expectation that she would be nice once I had secure a house and perhaps enjoy spending some time with myself and my daughter. I had an expectation that we would be able to get along and be on good terms. Now it is up to me whether I choose to let that unmet expectation turn into a resentment or not. I don't have to. She's just doing things the way she has always done them, I am the one that has changed. I can't tolerate it, and that's good, for me, it shows me that I have made progress and I am not a doormat anymore and do not get confused and upset by sick people spewing nonsense at me and about me. Obviously now is not the time for my mother and I to have a relationship, maybe that time will not come or maybe it will some day, its unknown. It's OK, I think I am OK with this now.

Whats good is that this Sunday is daughter's birthday and at her request I have booked us tickets to some gigantic waterslide  (it's a 400 meter slip n slide in the main park in the city, just there fr 1 day as a big event. A 400 meter slide, wow, that's pretty big....we have a ticket to ride it for 3 hours...and she has birthday money to spend...it wil be an awesome weekend ane then on Tuesday we move to our new house, mega yay....On Thursday she begins high school...2 weeks later I am back on campus to complete my bachelor degree after a 2 year hiatus (I enrolled in classes today, finally). There is so much to enjoy and look forward to. Yay!!