I'm finding myself in kind of a tough situation, which thankfully is not affecting me directly, but that I feel I should be obligated to be involved in despite the fact that I want nothing to do with it.
Of course, anytime I write anything like that, I'm obviously talking about my mother. Who else could cause such uncertainty and confusion? Who else could cause me to simultaneously feel disgust and intense guilt over her situation?
I've never talked about her much because I don't want her in my life (there's a point where the crazy is too much), but basically this is the short story: she moved 60 miles away when I was 5 years old, leaving me with my grandparents (actually her foster parents who raised her from the time she was a baby), she married my stepfather when I was 8, and I moved in with her and my stepfather when I was 12 because my grandparents were too old to care for me properly (they forgot to feed me and stuff). Within 6 months, she and my stepfather started abusing me because apparently I was a bad child. My stepfather also started drinking quite a bit. I wound up in foster care for a year when I was 14 because my mother decided she didn't want me anymore, but then she changed her mind by the next day. Of course, by that point, I was in the system and she had to jump through their hoops to get me back, which is why I was in for a year. I ultimately made the decision to return to her home because I knew that while she and my stepfather would abuse me, I could at least fight back with them, unlike my foster parents, who would just kick me out if I defended myself and say I was violent. I moved back in with her at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school and moved out a month before I turned 18 because I couldn't take the abuse and drama anymore. The weekend before I graduated high school, their house was foreclosed and they were kicked out with what belongings they were able to save. (My stepfather stopped paying the mortgage so he could fund his whiskey habit.) My stepfather's brother, one of the nicest, most decent people I've known, helped them find a trailer to live in that they could afford. This would have been in 2005.
I had almost no contact with her until late 2006, and saw her periodically for a couple of years. I actually thought our relationship might eventually improve to the point where it would be like having a real mother, like the kids on TV had. I decided to stop talking to her in early 2009 because she was mean to me constantly, but within a few months I let her back in at the insistence of the boyfriend I had at that time. She still seemed to be mostly okay in 2009 the one time I saw her - I knew she'd been forced to resign from her job because of her crazy behavior, that similar had happened with my stepfather because of his lack of hygiene, and that their trailer had roaches, or at least her car had them. I knew they had two cats and a dog, and that they were surviving on my stepfather's Social Security benefits, pension, and my mother's student loans, since she'd decided to go back to school. I had never been to their trailer, and for the most part played a part far off the sidelines of their daily lives.
Between 2009 and 2011, my mother's appearance and apparent health began to decline - she lost a dramatic amount of weight in a very short time, and soon it was difficult to sit near her on the rare occasions we would visit with her (this was when I was living with Sondra and company, so Sondra and the kids would accompany me on these visits), because she reeked of a combination of animal urine and the underlying scent of cockroaches. She was helpful when I was unable to find a job, and this was one of the reasons I continued to tolerate her, despite her crazy behavior and mean comments. (This is probably not the most honorable reason to continue a familial relationship that is otherwise completely toxic and messy, but it's the honest one.) During this time, I went to her trailer twice, once to pick up a package, and once to give her a ride home. I could smell it from the outside. I remember that the cement blocks supporting the structure were badly cracked and leaning, and everything about it looked horrifying and completely neglected. I could not imagine living like that.
After I moved to Emporia in 2012, I grew less and less tolerant of the verbal abuse she spewed across my Facebook (one of the few ways she could communicate with me, since she's deaf), or the outright lies she would send me via text message, and eventually created a secret Facebook so I could hide from her. The lying got worse, the best one being where she told me she had colon cancer, in the hopes this would cause us to develop the closeness that other mothers and daughters had. Unfortunately for her, it all blew up in her face when I caught her in the lie, and that began the planning to find a way to get her out of my life - the only reason I was still in contact with her at that point was because I was on her cell phone plan and could not get a plan on my own. I finally managed to get a house phone in December 2012, and promptly sent her a letter explaining that I never wanted to hear from her again, and enclosed the SIM card from my cell phone so she'd know I meant it.
Other than occasionally looking through her Facebook profile to see what she's up to (because I'm a sucker for punishment, I guess), I have kept my resolve to keep her out of my life. I remain in contact with my stepfather's brother's family, because they're kind, decent people and I genuinely like them, and their daughter is the same age as me. A few months ago, she informed me that my mother and stepfather are (finally) getting divorced. (They've been going in circles around that since 2001.) What was more, my stepfather was now halfway across the country, living with his other brother in his house, and my mother was in some sort of "adult care facility" in Missouri. It is impossible to explain exactly the combination of feelings I had with regard to this news. Relief, amusement, derision, disgust, disappointment, guilt, so much guilt.
Is it somehow my fault that they ended up in the situation they were in? I was pretty much your basic teenager when I lived with them - I was selfish, I didn't think about the future, I wanted stuff when I wanted it - but I was never the adult in control of these things, as far as I was concerned. Being under 18 and all. According to my mother and stepfather, all their woes, financial, marital, were directly caused by me. I caused them to be behind in bills, I caused my stepfather's alcoholism (I will admit to probably not being terribly helpful with recovery from it because I was at that frustrating attitude stage), I caused them to hate each other, I caused the foreclosure.... All of it was my fault.
My stepfather is actually in the best living situation he's been in since he met my mother (in fact, that's the point where I can see his life spiraling into the pit it is now), but my mother... I unblocked her on Facebook today (until Tuesday, when I can reblock her). I have my stepcousin's shortened explanation of what happened (and I could call her dad if I really wanted to know the details, but I'm not sure I do), and now I have the convoluted explanation straight from my mother, since she wrote it in a blog post on her Facebook and made it public. From what I can extrapolate, her dog disappeared, and so did my stepfather at about the same time. I'm assuming that someone came to get my stepfather and the dog was aggressive and that's why they were both gone. I could pick the whole thing apart, but basically she ended up in a motel after the trailer was condemned, and then in a care facility because no apartment would take her with her eviction records (well duh), and basically her whole life has fallen down around her ears.
I feel incredibly guilty because mostly my stepfather's brother's family has been dealing with the fallout of this situation, and has never once asked me to help them deal with her. I feel like it's supposed to be my responsibility to deal with her and her situation because she's my mother. But it's not a responsibility I'm prepared to handle, nor do I want it. I like my life now. It's peaceful without her. I don't want her in my life at all. She seems to have this incredibly destructive power to just mess everything up for herself and everyone around her, and I don't understand her. Even if I were willing to deal with her, I wouldn't even know how to help her. I don't think there is help for her at this point.
I hate how much uncertainty is wrapped up in this. I wish there was a nice, easy answer that made all of it better, that it could be packaged up neatly and organized and fixed. I don't think there's a way to fix her, and I don't want to waste my energy trying when I'm still trying to recover from the trauma of being her child. (I would also like an explanation as to why the hell I'm so normal when I came from her.)
