It's been a really rough week for me since I came home from Utah on Monday. This is going to be a long post I'm sure so settle in and get comfortable.
My Mother and I have a long, and well, let's face it, crazy history. She's always been a little "off", but I never really realized it until after high school. When I was a kid she would SCREAM at the top of her lungs at me. She would call me things like "shit head" and "retard" anytime I did something that she didn't like. She was
inconsistent. One day I came home from school 30 minutes late because I was talking to friends after class, my Mom was fine with it. The next week I was 5 minutes late one day because the teacher dismissed us late and I got grounded for a month. I couldn't go to my Prom because she didn't want to drive me. She didn't come to my high school graduation because she was going to have gastric bypass surgery. (She chose the date for her surgery by the way, knowing full well that I was graduating.)
When I started college, I also reactivated to the church through a childhood friend. (Who I will always be grateful and indebted to.) Around this same time my Mother had gastric bypass surgery.
After her surgery her behavior worsened
dramatically.
She got fired from her job and didn't tell me for over 3 months. She lied and told me that her work had to find another job for her and that it might take a while. She took all the money about her 401 K (about $3500) and she spent it ALL in one week. She didn't pay a single bill with it, nor did she pay any rent for the upcoming months. So, I quit school to work full time. During this time I payed the rent, utilities, groceries, and insurance for my car. Not only did I work full time, but I would come home to the messiest house EVER. It was disgusting. I would clean it every day and every day I would come to it recked again. Finally I got mad and asked her why she
hadn't gone back to work yet and she said, "I TOLD you they fired me!"
"They fired you? Then why haven't you gotten another job?"
"I supported you for 18 years, you can support me for a little while."
That's when I got really mad and went to my room and refused to cook dinner that night. She didn't like that so she came into my room and started to hit me and threw me into my desk. I
literally had to kick her to get her off of me and I grabbed my purse and left. We didn't speak for over 2 years, in fact I don't think we really talked again until after I came home from my mission.
When I came home from Nebraska she started talking to me again every once and a while and was VERY angry when Andrew asked my grandpa for permission to marry me instead of her. Because she was so mad, he called and asked her too, but she still didn't talk to me for months. She refused to go to the temple to take pictures and was a jerk at the reception.
When Andrew and I had been married for a few months, she asked him to take her car to get some things fixed on it. He told her he wouldn't just take the car, but that he would take her to do it so that he could introduce her to some
reputable people. She agreed, but when the day came she said that she never agreed to do that and that he should just take it and do it for her. He refused and she didn't talk to me for months.
She didn't talk to me again pretty much until she found out that I was pregnant, but still she didn't want to really have much to do with me. She refused to come to my baby shower because she felt that I was trying to "put on a happy facade". This was the same reason she gave for not coming to Parker's blessing.
One time she drove to our house when I wasn't home and left me the longest, rudest note about how I don't love her and how she hated me and how she wished she had never had me and how she never wanted to see me or "that kid" again. 2 weeks later she called me and asked to do laundry at my house. I asked her about the letter then and she denied having written it and said she didn't know what I was talking about.
During this same time, she was again not working and my grandmother was paying her bills and rent for her. When she stopped she didn't pay her rent and was evicted. She asked me for almost $1900 to pay her rent so she could stay. (This was the cost of all of the fees and the rent.) When I told her I didn't have that kind of money she got angry and wouldn't speak to anyone in the family for weeks. I went to go give her $200 from my grandma and she was all, "Is this going to pay my rent? Then why give it to me?" So I told her that I would keep it if she didn't want it and she flipped out and called me some choice words.
This was one of the few times in my life I have ever really had it and swore back at her. I told her that she was a nut and not to contact my family or I until she got help.
She hasn't talked to me since that day.... until now.
On Monday when I came home from Utah, my grandma went to take her some groceries. She kept whispering when she talked to her and said, "I have to talk quietly, they can hear me. They can hear us through the phone jack and the
Internet." Later, after Grandma left, she called 9-1-1 complaining of chest pains, then refused to get in the
ambulance when it arrived. The
EMT's called my grandma, who convinced her to
go to the hospital and then said she would meet her there.
When my Mom got to the hospital, she apparently walked out of the hospital and refused to be seen there. My grandma got her to agree to be seen at a different hospital, but then she didn't want to be seen there either so she got out of the car and walked around.
My Grandma went into the hospital to see if there was anything they could do, and after being told no, she came back out but she was gone.
Grandma came home and we filed a missing person's report, because of her abnormal behavior. A few hours later she returned to the hospital, but refused to be checked because she kept saying that she wasn't at a hospital.
My grandma went to pick her up, but convinced her to stay and be seen. That night she called me for the first time in over 2 years. "I'm sorry" she said. Then she wanted to know about Parker and talk to him. "Does he know who I am?" she asked.
"No, you haven't seen him in 2 years."
"Yes I have" and then she proceeded to tell me how she saw us all the time and didn't know what I was talking about and then she hung up on me.
That night the hospital had a social worker come talk to her because she was acting so weird and saying weird things, but the social worker said that she wasn't a threat and
was going to release her. But, when it was time to go, she refused to get dressed, wouldn't move, and wouldn't talk to anyone.
The doctor put her on a 5150, which is an involuntary psychological hold in the State of California. She'll be in the psych ward at least until Monday, but my Grandma thinks that they will keep her longer.
There's a lot more to this drama, but I'll stop here and start getting to the point.
She keeps asking my grandma if I will come and see her. I told my grandma that I wasn't ready to. And really, I may never be ready to. I feel bad for saying this, but I really don't want her around my children.
I know that she said that she's sorry, but she's said that a million times before. I bet she is sorry. If I was 44 years old and had a daughter that I barely knew anymore and grandchildren that I have never met, I would be sorry too.
However, true repentance means that you change. Her being
involuntarily committed is not change. She has to choose to make her life better. I know that she's sick, but she can seek help which she has always refused to do in the past. My Aunt also suffers from a severe psychological disorder, however she has sought help and counseling on her own. I am more willing to be accepting of my Aunt's behavior because she is at least trying to make changes, my Mom has not done this.
I'm not angry with my Mother. If she's sick, then she might not be able to control all of her behaviors. But, even though I'm not angry, I still don't feel like I need to continue to be abused by her. I feel like I've had enough, and I don't want my children to go through the things that I did.
I love my Mom, but I'm not ready to be around her again, and really I might never be.
I think I may get some boo's here on my blog, but I have to be honest. I thought it was so boring! I was literally falling asleep in my seat. Andrew kept poking me to wake me up. It was so predictable and unoriginal. (Copying the story of Pocahontas much?) I thought the special effects were completely unbelievable and the only thing worth looking at was Sam Worthington in his NON Avatar form. I'm not sure what was worse: The predictability of the movie... or the obvious anti-military, anti-government, anti-corporation, anti-capitalism theme of the film. 
