Toxicity

I hardly know where to begin. My last post gave me a lot of anxiety to re-read just now, yet here I am on the same subject of my mother, once again. I have to say, I really feel ready to just cut the world off and disappear. Not in a bad sense, just cut out the toxic people and hit the road already. We are going to do that, but we don't leave until the 15th, about a month from now. It's going to go by so, so slowly.

My grandma came into town yesterday to swap some kind of sewing programs with my mom at my mom's house. The previous day my mom told me she wanted me to come, too, because she didn't want to be left alone with her mother. They don't get along and they don't like each other, yet when they're together, they pretend to be all good. Honestly it's weird, yet I find myself doing the same thing with my mom daily. There are so damned many things wrong with our relationship and open wounds that are just not talked about, at all. Ever.

I took my one year old into the other room for a nap, and accidentally fell asleep. When I woke up, I heard my mom and grandma whispering, though I couldn't tell about what. I had an idea that it might be about me, why else would they need to whisper? No one else was there. But I didn't really care. They're both toxic people who only ever talk bad about every single other person they know or know of.

But once it was time to leave, my grandma came with me to come and check out our current RV park. We moved closer to our daughter's school this past Mother's Day and the park is beautiful. Anyway, she looked at me and said, "Your mother just loves drama." First, even starting a conversation that way is drama in itself. You see? They're toxic. But, it is true that my mom loves drama. In fact, she only ever watches those messed up shows about people's problems: Maury, Steve Wilkos, Jerry Springer, etc. She'll get lividly angry if you try to have a conversation with her while she's watching the drama unfold, or just plain ignore you. She's also always just scrolling Facebook, talking about this person and that person and this situation, nothing ever positive or productive.

My grandmother proceeded to tell me that my mother knows that once we get out on the road that we're in for a rude awakening because we're going to find out real quick that traveling isn't all it cracked up to be. Now first, whether or not that was said, and there's no telling because they're both liars and shit talkers, it's ridiculous. How can any one person say that someone else's path isn't a good path for them? It's not your damn choice or your life. They like to sit around and not go outside, we like to travel and live outdoors. So yeah, a life on the road wouldn't be good for them. I am not them. I am me. And I love traveling and experiencing life. Even the downs. All of it. Thankyouverymuch.

Recently my husband threw our daughter's tennis shoes into the dryer and forgot about them. Our new dryer gets crazy hot and runs for way too long. The soles of the shoes actually shrank to almost half of their original size. They were wrecked beyond repair and trash. My mom said she was going to go buy new shoes for her. I said not to worry about it that she didn't need them, and that she could sit out for PE today until we got back home and dug out her other wearable shoes. So even though I said no, she took it upon herself to go anyway and buy shoes. For that I was thankful when it turned out the original shoes were trash, but was not something I asked for and something I even declined. She apparently told my grandma that she was "suckered" into buying the shoes, and that if she had known how much money my husband makes, she wouldn't have done that.

Here's what I find to be sick about that. She knew how much money my husband makes, long before she took it upon herself to buy those shoes. She bought something I told her not to. And, who cares how much money a child's parents have when you're a grandparent? Don't you do things for your grandchildren just purely because you love them??????

Then comes another kicker. Someone, and I obviously at this point don't even know who said what because they're both saying the other person said it (the toxicity is killing me), said that there must be something going on between my husband and his boss, who is a female, and in her late fifties. We aren't even thirty yet. I'm almost positive that it was likely my mother who said that one. She hates my husband's boss, for no reason at all, whatsoever. But she hates everyone. She once told me that something about the woman rubbed her wrong. But there's no sustenance to that at all. I really believe she just may be jealous. His boss has her own successful business, and loves us like her own kids. She's talked about selling my husband her business, and my mom feels inadequate because of that in a lot of ways. Plus, she's not going to like anyone who likes my husband because, you guessed it, she hates him, too.

For the first time, yesterday as I felt physically sick over the things that had been said by either one of or both of the women who are supposed to care most about me and my family, the word 'toxic' kept coming to mind. I just felt so sick, like really sick for the first time, and so done. When I was finally alone yesterday I Googled things like, "signs of a toxic relationship/parent", "symptoms of a toxic personality", etc. I wasn't sure what I'd find, but was even more sickened and somehow shocked that both my mother and grandmother fit the bill, to a T. I'd always known they both had their issues, but this was, in writing, no denying a sick truth about my own blood that I'd almost somehow ignored and brushed off because well, "it's my family".

There have been a lot of fucked up things throughout my life that I've downplayed because I didn't want to appear as dramatic as my mom and grandmother constantly do about everything, literally everything. I guess over time, I really believed that those things were no big deal, and that living in a first world country with food to eat, no physical abuse (nothing consistent anyway, I believe my mother hit me twice in my whole life) and money at my disposal, that I had no right to feel like my life wasn't perfect. Not to mention, my own mother so constantly reminding me how good I had it and how much she does for me all the time. Always reminding and never letting anyone forget just how much she'd done and sacrificed. Everything was always held over my head. I was never given anything without being reminded that it had been done with great sacrifice of one kind or another. I never ever once in my entire life (yes still to this day) felt like my mother gave me anything out of love. In fact, there were times that she was so awful to me, that the next day she'd take me out on a shopping spree. It always felt like a guilt thing to me, and now I'm realizing that I was right, and also why it still never felt good.

Sometimes I still can't believe that my mom said that if she'd known I'd be such a fuck up, she'd have had another kid. I only thank God that she didn't do any of this to another human being. She's incapable of showing love, and no child deserves to grow up wondering if his/her mother loves him. This is another reason why I don't believe her when she says she didn't say any of that stuff yesterday. I fully believe they were both saying unfounded and mean things, because that's just who they are. Also because her own husband has confided in me some of the things she's said about me and about my marriage. She doesn't know that though.

I think now that I'm finally realizing things, my first step having been when my therapist cried after our first session, and my second one now being the realization of just how toxic the women in my family are... I can really being to move forward in my life. I can begin the process of healing, breaking this horrible cycle that goes back for at least four, yes four generations alone that I know of, and become a whole, healthy human being for my sweet and amazing kids. Who by the way, one of them said I was raising horribly. This coming from two women who never raised a single child...

Today has been a lot of trying to let go of the anger and hurt of their words. I know that it's only going to drag me down into their bitterness and their negativity, and I don't want that for me or for my family. Today begins healing y'all.

Disappearances

It's been awhile since I last wrote. I tend to do that when it comes to journaling. But, it's also because I started a legitimate travel blog and have been running around like a crazy person trying to keep up with the kids, the blog and get the house purged and ready for the market. We've purchased a 5th wheel and booked our two months at an RV park South of us while our daughter finishes Kinder. I've also booked our month at our first stop in Colorado Springs! And on top of that, we've recently battled RSV and flu.

I come today, to get some thoughts down that I can't really share anywhere else. But since I've logged in have decided I'm too emotionally exhausted to write about it. I'm going to try anyway.

Since telling my mother about this trip, a range of things have happened. Most recently, yesterday, her husband came over to pick up our kitchen table and chairs. They don't have one because they decided they didn't like their last one and it only collected clutter as they sit on the couch in front of the telly to eat. But he'd just been talking about getting a round one, which ours was. It was initially ours at my mom's house (or my mom's rather) before I moved out. When we moved into this house ten years ago, she gave it to us to purchase something she liked better.

Let me add, that she does not give. Even all these years later, she still viewed those "given" items as hers. Including the washer and dryer that are so old, we have almost entirely rebuilt them twice and put more money into them than they're worth. That, she also gave away because she hated - wanting top loaders while these were front. Yet, to her, they were hers. When she found out we had sold them, she was apparently "pissed"......for some unknown reason. If she expected these things back after ten years, I guess she should have said something, considering it was our understanding that she had given them to us. What would she even do with an extra set of old worn out washer/dryers?

The money she put into this house, and in new furniture that she helped us to get, we paid her back just a few months ago, in full mind you. $23k. But somehow it wasn't enough for her. She complains to her husband (according to him almost daily) that she got the short end of the stick on our house. But... it was our house. That she was merely helping with, and got her money back out of... So I'm having a hard time understanding what she feels is owed to her over a house belonging to her daughter and grandchildren. Seriously, never go in on money deals with family. Don't learn the hard way. Money makes people crazy.

So I also have to add that she's obsessed with money and material possessions. She also doesn't do things for people without expecting recognition, at the very least. If she doesn't get that, she'll continuously remind those who know about the thing she did, and how hard that was for her and how she had to go out of her way, and yadda yadda. She stores up money and then complains about how she has to have her part time job so that she "can afford to eat", when we all know that isn't even close to the case. It's strange that she feels the need to try and make everyone feel like she hasn't any money, when they have a handful of very expensive vehicles and motorcycles, a house that's completely paid for, jewelry that's worth more than our brand new fifth wheel... It's like she takes us for some kind of idiots. Which, is pretty offensive honestly.

Her husband was telling me today that he's discovered that she hides money around the house. Not like an emergency fund in a hidden place, but everywhere. In books, drawers, the freezer, safe, etc. To the point where an old woman of the depression would. But she's 47.

And today when I called her to see how she was, she was complaining that she thought something was seriously wrong with her. That her stomach felt hard, but she was throwing up and her nose was bleeding a lot. But that she didn't want to go to the doctor and wouldn't come over so that I could take her and be there for her (since she was saying she feels so alone and abandoned - yet pushes everyone away who tries to care about her). She's convinced that it's something serious, but doesn't know how she'll be able to afford the doctor bills. The weird part is, that she can pay the bills, easily. She just doesn't want to spend her money. I'm not sure what she thinks she's going to do with it. What's the point in it if she isn't going to use it at the very least, for her health?

When my husband and I first got together, we would travel to the beach each summer. It was a three hour drive down to the coast, so very friendly on the wallet for a young couple on "vacation". Gas and hotel were cheap and we still have fond memories and stories of our little trips. She used to complain to me that she didn't know how I could afford to go. How she hadn't been on a vacation in years, yet I go every year. I'd always ask her why she didn't, and she'd always act like she didn't have the money... even with a full time job and no house payment. We choose to spend our money on experiences. If she wants to store hers up, that's her business. And my business is mine. She can't take it with her when she dies though, she may as well use it to take trips she's always talked about, and do things other than sit at home with her dogs in her pajamas. But, what she does with her money is her business and hers alone. And seriously, alone. She's even told me about a secret bank account that her husband doesn't know about. I only assume it has money in it that my grandmother left behind, and there was apparently a lot of it. It just bothers the hell out of me that she'll lie to my face about it, for reasons unknown. As if for sympathy, perhaps.

Her husband came over last night to pick up the table, which, by the way we should have just sold to help fund our journey - but I offered because it seemed like a nice thing to do. Yet I hear about how I should basically be giving them everything we can't take with us, from our washer and dryer, to our tables, couches and televisions. She even seems somewhat distraught over the fact that I'm leaving, but doesn't wonder at all why I don't mind distancing myself after the way she acts about "selfless" acts of "giving" and things she's said about me and my husband and kids? She wants me to be able to come to her for help, but I believe it's truly out of the desire to have control over a situation. I don't plan to ever come to her for help in any way once the ties are completely broken. I've spent the last 27 years under her thumb, and the last thing I want to do is give her anything else to hold over her own daughter's head or ever give her the chance to do that to my children.

So my step-dad stayed talking for awhile and she lost her mind over it. I understand both sides. He should've called if he hadn't planned to return right away, because he said he would. Though he did call and she asked him to wrap it up and he said okay, he lost track of time and he and my husband stayed up having a heart-to-heart about our journey. They sat around the table and drank some whiskey that was gifted to my husband a couple of weeks ago, not something I held issue with in the least. Family, sitting in the kitchen talking. No one out at the club with shitty friends. But she hates when he drinks (and hates my husband - considering him one of those "shitty friends").

The last two times my step-dad has had alcohol to the point of intoxication, she's caused huge scenes over it. Like hiding outside the house behind the AC unit and calling my husband (who she hates mind you) to come and "save her" from her husband who was completely in shock when mine showed up. And embarrassed, because of all the explicit private things she was yelling in his presence and with the neighbors around. She'll say all day long how horrible he is drunk, but we've never seen it, only her huge overreactions. So I can only go off of personal experience. I find him pretty hilarious when he's been drinking. And to be fair, when they started dating, that's pretty much all they did together. To top it off, he's tried to quit drinking which was hard for him, but instead of being supportive, she would bring alcohol into the house anyway, and drink by herself. Then complain and call him a shitty husband when he would start drinking again. Even calling him a little girl and an old man and other rude things when he would make faces after shots, or start 'feelin it' before her.

But, the shittiest thing of it all so far are the two things he told me she said last night. One, that she knows my marriage is going to fall apart and is just waiting for it to crumble. Yet offers no support, advice or anything positive. Only two face pretending to be my husband's best friend when they're in the same room and using him for car help - though talks about how he doesn't know sh*t about cars even though he's an ASE certified master technician and has been working with them for about 20 years now.

And two, that if she'd known I was going to make so many mistakes (which I'm failing to see what are aside from normal human things that we've actually handled amazingly well - if I don't say so myself. *And yes I'm butthurt considering she's made far more of those "mistakes" than I ever have.), she'd have had another child. Another thing my grandmother once told me she actually did at one point and either had a miscarriage or abortion, one thing we may not ever know the truth of. Especially considering how she dramatizes everything and offered to pay for an abortion for me when I was pregnant with our daughter. Thank God I didn't take her up on that, not that it was ever considered, as our daughter has been the most amazing gift and has filled our hearts with overwhelming joy - that we show thanks and love to her for constantly. Something I was never shown by my own mother.

I tried to talk to her today about what happened last night, and she told me she was so unhappy that she just wanted to die. It isn't the first time I've heard her say that. Though at least this time I'm an adult and not a confused kid. I'm not really sure what to do. Though I don't agree with much of how she lives her own life, and how negatively she thinks, she's still my mom. I do love her, and I know she needs help. She needs to talk to a therapist, and start at the beginning. She has a lot of things from her childhood that she's never let go of. In fact, she doesn't let go of anything, ever. But, she doesn't seem to think she needs any help. In fact, she doesn't seem to think therapists are worth a thing.

When my great grandmother died, I asked to talk to someone and she told me no. She said if I needed to talk to someone, I could talk to her. Though I'd never been able to talk to her, and still to this day can't. I could only talk to my grandma, and now she was dead, which made life pretty hard after that going into my teen years. My grandmother took care of me from the beginning, until she died. She was like my mother. But apparently I didn't need to talk to anyone over the death of a woman who took care of me for 12 years, because admitting your kid needs help, or that you need help is some form of failure to her maybe? We're all human. I just wish she take steps to get well and bring happiness into her life. I think some medication and therapy could really change her life, but she doesn't want it, and I don't know how to make her get it.

She doesn't come around to see her grandkids, won't help me out watching them when I really need her to because she doesn't want to leave her dogs alone and doesn't listen at all when I actually try talking to her about anything. But now that I'm nearing 30, married with two kids and going on with my life, things seem to be falling apart for her. I can't help but to feel like, even though I know it's not my fault, I inadvertently ruined her entire life by being born. I obviously am not going to place that blame on myself, that wasn't my choice. But she's certainly made me feel that way since I can remember. I don't feel as if she ever viewed me as a child to love, but as a possession. In fact, my grandmother recalls her saying that she was glad to be pregnant because it (me - the baby) was the only thing in her life she'd have complete control over.

It wasn't until this last year that I began to see a therapist myself. I honestly think that no matter who you are or how great you think things are, you can benefit from a weekly, or even monthly session with an outside point of view on the state of your heart, your relationships, etc. Even better if you're married and seeing a marriage counselor for those "check-ups" and "tune-ups". Of course, I made our first therapist cry (telling him some of the things from my life, to be clear), and couldn't bring myself to go back. Besides, he was crazy expensive and a little too far away. So we started seeing a marriage counselor who we loved. He allowed us to meet while our daughter was in school, and bring the baby who would play in the floor. He was/is great. He helped us both to think about some things differently, and to come to a point of understanding on what we wanted for our kids, selves and marriage and how to work towards that as a team.

I've seen incredibly positive changes in how my husband handles arguments and other situations. And it's been monumental. A long time coming for communication like this. I've also handled and thought of things differently in a much better way. I'll be forever thankful for our therapist. We both have things we need to work on individually and as a couple, but at least we're in a place now where we're recognizing them and wanting to work through them together, supporting each other. It's beautiful. I wish those things for my mother, too. But even she admitted today that she's turning into our gram, who died bitter and alone. I don't understand that if she's recognizing there's a problem, why she won't get help. Sometimes it's as if she might be split personality, recognizing an issue one moment and completely denying it the next. I just am not sure what I can do. For a while I thought there was nothing. That just leaving was the best thing I could do for me, my kids and my marriage. Maybe that's true. But it doesn't feel right. I at the very least need to talk to her, and tell her what I feel. She can take the information however, but at least I've not left things unsaid.

There are so many things I still haven't written about, but it's so hard to stay on track and not ramble on. It also doesn't help that I feel like this has turned into a mom-bashing, which it was certainly never meant to be. We're all human and none of us are perfect. Yes, some of the things she's said and done are incredibly hurtful and I am venting, but mostly I'm just trying to make sense of things. Record the process of these situations. Maybe it will help me, maybe one day it will help someone else. If no one else, than maybe give insight to my children one day.