Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don't

I got into another fight with my mother last night. I am still reeling from it today. The steroids aren’t helping me too much with controlling my moods. She had an awful day (as she always does) and had been taking it out on the kids. Hubby said she had yelled so horribly at Kid-1 for opening a can of crushed pineapple instead of pineapple chunks that he went outside crying and when asked by his sister to come back in, replied, “Why should I bother coming in to help? I’ll just screw it up anyways.”

So, I’m standing there and she started screaming again because Kid-2 asked where something in the kitchen was. And I walked into the room and I lifted my finger and pointed at her and said, in the same tone I use on the kids when they are throwing a tantrum, “Enough. That is enough. You’re done.” And I turned my back on her and went to make sure the kids were okay. And things exploded from there. She stormed off to her room, swearing and slamming the whole way. Later, I went up to her and we got into it for real. She knows exactly how to hurt me to my core, to ruin me so bad that all I want to do is die. And so she did; she pulled out all the stops.

I have been trying to get a grip on it since then, a grip on myself and my emotions, on the overpowering guilt and despondency. I had my appointment with The Shrink this morning. And I told him about the fight.

Now, The Shrink has the habit of taking what I say and reflecting it back stripped of the emotion. And at one point he said, "So it’s okay for her to scream and yell and swear at everyone because she's trying and she gives you money?"

He also pointed out what she gained out of her tantrum last night. She got to blow her top, got two hours of my undivided attention, got a pity party thrown for her and got to walk away feeling like she wasn’t in the wrong in any way.

The Shrink keeps telling me that I need to stop feeding her tantrums, to stand up to her. He thinks that she will get mad but she will get over it and if she doesn’t... then he shrugs. What he doesn’t get is that whole "if she doesnt..." just ISN’T acceptable to me. And it’s a distinct possibility.

So my choices come down to:

A) trying to do my best to balance placating her and keeping her happy with trying to show her how she's not being effective - thus not having to cut her off but still having to deal with her shit....

Or B) cutting her off, hurting everyone, not being able to explain to my kids why their grandmother is behaving as she is, losing most of my (thus far pretty good) relationship with my dad, losing financial support (and thereby sinking pretty damned fast), losing my aunt (who is completely on my mother's side), and losing my mother - potentially for good.

Let’s explore how things could play out…

So, she is screaming at the kids over something trivial and pathetic and I step in and say, "Enough. That’s enough." And I turn my back on her and go to make sure the kids are okay and know this isn’t their fault.

She now stands up, so mad she is literally spitting, and stomps out the room swearing at and about me. She stomps up the steps and slams the door. (Yay us - she's gone!!) Twenty minutes later, dinner is ready.

Now comes the first choice - tell her or leave her...

No one else will go up to tell her so it would have to be me. If I choose to go up and tell her, she will swear at me in a way that cuts to the core. From there I can ignore it and walk away, or I can confront her about it.

If I confront her about it, she will throw everything she has at me. And, believe me, she knows EXACTLY where to hit me in order to crush my spirit. So now, I can try to calm her down or I can leave her upset.

If I calm her down, I’ve played into her hand (and walk away feeling like shit). If I leave her upset, we won’t see her again that night and no one has to deal with her that night. I can tell the kids that she is upset and not feeling well, that it isn’t their fault and we should continue without her. (end of night)

If, when she swears at me, I walk away, I leave her upset. (see previous scenario)

So, lets back up a little farther.... Say I refuse to go up and tell her dinner is ready. Daddy will be upset. (He'll get over it, though it will upset me A LOT.) And mom will become even angrier that we never bothered to tell her dinner was ready and just left her up there upset. She stays upset and the ‘we won’t see her again that night’ scenario plays out. (end of night)

So now we have left it one of two places....... I have placated mother and played right into her hand and left feeling like shit. Or I have left her upset and angry at me, vilifying me (with or without the added benefit of getting my dad mad at me too.) And I feel like shit.

Okay, for purposes of discussion, let’s end the ‘playing into her hand’ line and move on with the ‘mom pissed at the end of the night’ scenario...

Now, the next day, I have a choice. I can call her or not. (Because she WON’T call me.)

If I don’t call her, I don’t know whether or not she is stewing in her juices or has blown it off. But I don’t have to deal with her either way. (end of day)

If I do call her, she may have blown it off in which case the whole subject is put off until NEXT time she blows, which will, statistically speaking, be the next time we are over there. (end of day)

Or she may still be seriously pissed at me, in which case she will either refuse to speak to me or give me the ice-bitch treatment. Either way, I will end up extremely upset but won’t have to deal with her anymore that day. (end of day)

Alright, for purposes of this discussion, let’s declare the ‘put it off until next time’ option an end point and move on. Flash forward a week, until the next time we are scheduled to go over there. Now I have a few choices. I can call her to see if she's calmed down yet. If she's being civil and polite and everything, we can try again. Now we are back to the ‘wait until next time’ scenario.

If I call her and she hasn’t calmed down, I can try to placate her at that point. Now I have played into her hand again AND given myself a week of emotional hell.

If I call her and she hasn’t calmed down and I decide to call off the day, I have to explain it to the kids. I can tell them she is still not in the mood for company and reassure them that it isn’t their fault. The kids won’t get their allowance for the week. I won’t get the money for my appointment with The Shrink for the week. I won’t get to do lunch with my dad. AND... I feel like shit.

But hey, it’s just one week, right? She should get the point, right?

Except that, with Mom, it could go either way as to how long this will last. And what do I tell the kids the second week? Or the third? How will I pay for the kids’ allowances and my doctor appointments? And I don’t get to do lunch with my dad, which sucks.

What about after a month? Now I've missed one or two grocery shopping trips. She'll have to get her own groceries, which she'll learn to adjust, but that’s money that we don’t have budgeted and don’t have available. PLUS, the kids’ activity fees are now due; how do I pay for those?

By the way, by this point, she will have commiserated with my aunt, who will have called to bitch me out and tell me how horrible I am at LEAST once. And most of my contact with my dad will be cut off because she'll go ballistic on him if I try to get together with him and he won’t do the conflict of it.

Oh yeah, one more thing - if you think I am being pessimistic or melodramatic, I'm not. Because it’s happened already, every one of these scenarios. I think I made it a month before I caved, rolled over and played dead, groveled and begged until she would speak to me again. Then it took another six weeks to two months to get her to be beyond barely civil. And this isn’t even addressing the repercussions on HER physical and mental health, which I have left out because The Shrink says this is "her problem" and not mine, like those don’t impact me.

The fact is that cutting her off means losing a HUGE number of things for me? And that ‘cutting her off’ is just one time, cutting her off in mid-tantrum. I keep telling people that I'm a taker, a user and a leech. They don’t believe me. I've told them that I am spoiled and selfish and they don’t believe me. But it’s like The Shrink said, I let it be okay for her to scream and be awful to us because she trying not to and because she gives me money. And the consequences of standing up to her are so severe that, because I am as awful as I am, I'm not sure that I'm willing to take them.

My Guardian Angel asked me if I’ve ever talked to Daddy about her actions and their effects on the kids. And we have talked about it a little (little little!) bit before. Then, last night, I tried to get HIM to go up and tell her dinner was ready. He refused and said I had to be the one to make up with her. I told him that I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep letting him hurt the kids like that, hurt me like that. He said he couldn’t/wouldn’t make up for me and that I had to go make it right with her. (Those were his exact words - I had to go make it right with her.)
So I went. And I tried. And I came down at one point to get her a drink and her cigarettes and Daddy gave me a look that asked how it was going. I glared at him. When I came down at the end, he asked if I was okay. I told him that I had her calmed down and she would be okay. He asked if I was okay. I shot him an evil look, then forced a smile and said I was just peachy, half-sarcastic.
And it really kinda hit home that he's never really protected me. But I don’t ever remember him being so explicit in saying it is my job to make things right with her. Or maybe I just wouldn’t hear it for what it was.

I love my father with all my heart. I've spent my entire life trying to make him proud of me or at least not be such a disappointment to him. And I guess it never really sunk in just how much he put me into the thick of it. “Fed me to the wolves” is the term that comes to mind. And I feel hurt. I feel like I was worth so little, that I was so horrible, that I must have deserved to be put in that position. I feel sad and hopeless. There's no anger in it, or resentment, or anything of the like, though from the reactions of my Guardian Angel and The Shrink, maybe there should be.

But I don’t know how to force those kinds of emotions. And I don’t know how handle any of this. All I want to do is hide. Since I’m not allowed to die, I just want to hide.