Today something really horrible happened.
Lately I have been so fed up with family drama. So it was logical when starting last week my boyfriend began to tell me about his family drama that I told him I didn't want to listen. Well, I barely listened. All I heard was something about his brother being arrested for drug possession and his other brother telling their mother that she was a big, fat, lazy pig.
I just didn't give a crap.
I listened even less today when he told me that there was a family meeting at 7:00 and they would all be discussing his two brothers' latest indiscretions. It seemed so nonchalant to me that his mother, father and two brothers arrived promptly at 6:30 and all went in to the room together.
I walked past the room and his mother said, "Come here, mi hija, we are going to have a family meeting".
I responded with, "No, I am on my way to my cousin's house and I just need to get my stuff". I grabbed my stuff and shut the door behind me.
But I couldn't walk away and something in my stomach told me to listen.
It began slowly with the father telling the brother that he had messed up something in the family business. The brother began to make excuses and demanded that their mother come to his defense. "Tell him! Tell him! Tell him what happened!" he started screaming.
The father yelled back, "Don't talk to your mother like that".
The father and brother continued to yell back and forth at one another, challenging one another to "take it outside".
Suddenly, the brother began to yell at the mother. I heard a huge bang and she started screaming and crying. I had it in my head that he was beating on her and causing her pain. I immediately ran into the bedroom, opening the door to see my boyfriend holding back his brother on one side and his father on another.
My boyfriend saw me standing at the door and yelled, "Get out of here! Get our of here".
I walked back to the bedroom and sat quietly listening for sound from the other room. I heard the father say that he would be evicting the brother and that if he didn't get out of the house he would send the police to the house.
My boyfriend's brother ran out of the room and screamed, "You're a sick pervert! A sexual deviant! I'm going to tell everyone that you are nothing but a sick pedophile. A sick, disgusting pedophile!"
My boyfriend suddenly came into the room and yelled at me, "Get your shit and get the fuck out of here!"
I was taken aback because I didn't understand why he was speaking to me in such a manner. Finally, he said, "There's gonna be some crazy shit happening tonight, and I don't want you here".
He's never spoke to me like that before, so I instinctively knew that I needed to get my stuff and leave immediately. I jammed out of there in minutes.
Frankly I could care less what is going on over there, because I am more concerned with the whole other aspect of the brother's accusation against the father.
You see, ten years ago, the other brother's ex wife told me on the day that they got divorced that she thought that the father had molested her ex husband when he was a child.
I mentioned this to my boyfriend and he laughed hysterically when he told me that she was just making things up because she was angry at the family. He said that it was a crazy accusation.
Yet over the years I have tended to stay away from the father, although I had forgotten as to why.
So tomorrow I am going to ask my boyfriend to explain his brother's accusation. And then, well, frankly, I don't know what will happen. My heart knows that if there was any molesting going on in that family that he will absolutely not tell me. I just feel it.
What the hell has my life become over the past couple of weeks?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Drama, Drama, Drama
Tonight I showed my cousin my blog and she was really excited about it. We've decided that she is eventually going to add her two cents to the mix sooner or later. Believe me, this is going to be a hoot. I couldn't make up this craziness if I tried.
For the record, after speaking with my cousin, I have to clarify a few things. In my post about my grandmother losing her son, I seemed to have remembered the story slightly incorrectly. The actual story is: My grandmother was leaving the house and one of my aunts and the boy were waving out the window. The boy leaned on the screen and fell out of the window.
After speaking with my cousin, we decided to change the pseudonym that I gave her and her mother, and we included their actual real names. My cousin is just fine with me using her name, and frankly I could give a rat's ass if my aunt doesn't like it. I will keep the prince with the pseudonym of Arturito or I will just call him the prince, since he is really more of an innocent victim in this whole crazy story.
So now I am just brainstorming the next thing that I would like to discuss. Where to begin? Where to begin?
Should I talk about when my Uncle Arturito (the prince) told all of his sisters that he had chopped up Melvin in the bathtub and put him in the septic tank? Or should I go way back to my grandmother's youth and talk about when she was tied to the front porch as a baby (you know...daycare?) and was saved by someone passing by from drowning in a bucket? Hmmm, maybe I will talk about when my nudist grandfather moved to Uruapan, Mexico and married a fifteen year old, and later was found dead in the shower? Or when my grandfather shot at my grandmother as she was running away from him? Or maybe I'll just talk about the time when my mom sat on my chest all night long, chanting self-help and religious crap because I'm such an ungrateful daughter.
You REALLY have NO IDEA how therapeutic this blog is becoming!
For the record, after speaking with my cousin, I have to clarify a few things. In my post about my grandmother losing her son, I seemed to have remembered the story slightly incorrectly. The actual story is: My grandmother was leaving the house and one of my aunts and the boy were waving out the window. The boy leaned on the screen and fell out of the window.
After speaking with my cousin, we decided to change the pseudonym that I gave her and her mother, and we included their actual real names. My cousin is just fine with me using her name, and frankly I could give a rat's ass if my aunt doesn't like it. I will keep the prince with the pseudonym of Arturito or I will just call him the prince, since he is really more of an innocent victim in this whole crazy story.
So now I am just brainstorming the next thing that I would like to discuss. Where to begin? Where to begin?
Should I talk about when my Uncle Arturito (the prince) told all of his sisters that he had chopped up Melvin in the bathtub and put him in the septic tank? Or should I go way back to my grandmother's youth and talk about when she was tied to the front porch as a baby (you know...daycare?) and was saved by someone passing by from drowning in a bucket? Hmmm, maybe I will talk about when my nudist grandfather moved to Uruapan, Mexico and married a fifteen year old, and later was found dead in the shower? Or when my grandfather shot at my grandmother as she was running away from him? Or maybe I'll just talk about the time when my mom sat on my chest all night long, chanting self-help and religious crap because I'm such an ungrateful daughter.
You REALLY have NO IDEA how therapeutic this blog is becoming!
Monday, February 22, 2010
A Prince Was Born
My family has an interesting and dysfunctional dynamic between women and men. I don't know when it all started, but the earliest story that I have been able to pinpoint goes back to my grandmother. She had a few daughters, and somewhere along the line she had a boy.
My aunts don't remember much about him, so we can only hypothesize that possibly my grandmother hadn't yet tipped over the edge into (what we suspect was) mental illness. I take that back-what I suspect was mental illness, because almost everyone else in the family is so deep into denial that they think that she was merely tired from having so many children. I haven't heard much about the family dynamics at the time that this little boy was around, but I do know that a tragedy occurred that until this day has marked our family like a curse.
One day my grandmother was coming home from the store and my older aunt and the boy were waving to her outside of the third story window. The boy , as everyone in the family called him, was so excited that my grandmother was coming home that he began to jump up and down on the bed. Suddenly, he flew out of the window and tumbled three flights down, only to hit the ground and die at her feet. They say that after that day my grandmother was never the same again.
My grandmother got pregnant, year after year, trying to have another boy to replace the boy that she had lost. Over the years she had eight more girls with who knows how many men until she finally had another boy, the little prince that she had been waiting for ever since the day when she lost her precious little boy.
The joke in the family is that on the day that my uncle Arturo was born... a prince was born.
Arturo wasn't just an ordinary prince-he was a special prince who had everything handed to him on a platter while his thirteen sisters were practically starved to death in order to give him all his little heart desired. My mother was less than a year old when the little prince was born, and rumor has it that my mother was completely left in the dust as soon as her precious baby brother was born.
Arturito, as everyone loved to call him, was allowed to live in the house with my grandmother and the husband that she kept until he died. The man wasn't his or my mother's father. My mother and some of the remaining sisters who had not already ran away with men at a young age lived in the house next door to them.
The girls' house had no running water, no electricity, no food, and a leaky roof. The girls ran an extension cord from the main house to their house and would all sleep together in a bed with a blow dryer to try to keep warm. Because there was no running water, they would all have to go to the bathroom in the coffee cans that they would keep outside in the back of the house.
The girls had no food in their house and would sometimes sneak over to the main house when no one was home to try to sneak a piece of food. They knew that every night the prince was served a home cooked meal by my grandmother and that there was bound to be leftovers. Eventually my grandmother caught on to the fact that they were stealing food and a large chain with a lock was placed around the refrigerator. One of my older aunts was able to get work in a local store when she was fourteen, and she would steal cupcakes every day to bring home to the other sisters so that they would have something to eat every day.
At some point, my mother and her older sister were moved back into the main house with my grandmother, her husband and the prince. My mother and her sister were given a small bedroom and were told that they were not allowed to use the lights in the bedroom. They also were not allowed to take a bath, because the prince needed all the water that he could get and money was apparently scarce.
My mother and her sister would go for days on end by taking baths in the local stream, but at least once a week they would sneak into the bathroom to take a quick bath. While everyone else was eating, my mother and aunt would both go into the bathroom and when each one of them flushed the toilet, they would let out a little bit of water in the tub. Then, they both quietly bathed in the itty bitty amount of water that was in the bathtub. They eventually were caught at their game and had the daylight beat out of them.
Somewhere along the line, some men from the government (who knows who they were) found out that my uncle was extremely intelligent and they came to take him to who knows where but my grandmother would not let him go. It was at that point that my grandmother told my aunts that they were not allowed to study or do their homework anymore for some reason. If they were caught studying, reading or doing homework, the daylight was beat out of them again. My mother and aunt used to steal batteries for flashlights so that they could do their homework and read my uncle's many books in their damp, moldy closet at night.
One day when my mother was more or less in junior high, it was raining heavily. My mother walked miles and miles home from school in the rain, and just as she was approaching her street, she looked up to see a car driving down the road. She could barely see from all of the rain in her eyes, and she could barely walk as the road flooded, but she managed to catch a glimpse of her mother driving by with her brother, waving in the rain. As the car passed, it covered her in mud.
That was the day that my mother decided to run away from home and live with one of her sisters, never speaking to her mother again until I was almost sixteen years old and her mother had a massive stroke which left her senseless.
My mother eventually met a man who promised her the moon, giving birth to me when she was 21 years old. Three years later, she gave birth to a boy. Two weeks after his birth, the son of a bitch left her high and dry.
And the cycle continued. But that, my friends, is a whole other story that is best saved for another day.
My aunts don't remember much about him, so we can only hypothesize that possibly my grandmother hadn't yet tipped over the edge into (what we suspect was) mental illness. I take that back-what I suspect was mental illness, because almost everyone else in the family is so deep into denial that they think that she was merely tired from having so many children. I haven't heard much about the family dynamics at the time that this little boy was around, but I do know that a tragedy occurred that until this day has marked our family like a curse.
One day my grandmother was coming home from the store and my older aunt and the boy were waving to her outside of the third story window. The boy , as everyone in the family called him, was so excited that my grandmother was coming home that he began to jump up and down on the bed. Suddenly, he flew out of the window and tumbled three flights down, only to hit the ground and die at her feet. They say that after that day my grandmother was never the same again.
My grandmother got pregnant, year after year, trying to have another boy to replace the boy that she had lost. Over the years she had eight more girls with who knows how many men until she finally had another boy, the little prince that she had been waiting for ever since the day when she lost her precious little boy.
The joke in the family is that on the day that my uncle Arturo was born... a prince was born.
Arturo wasn't just an ordinary prince-he was a special prince who had everything handed to him on a platter while his thirteen sisters were practically starved to death in order to give him all his little heart desired. My mother was less than a year old when the little prince was born, and rumor has it that my mother was completely left in the dust as soon as her precious baby brother was born.
Arturito, as everyone loved to call him, was allowed to live in the house with my grandmother and the husband that she kept until he died. The man wasn't his or my mother's father. My mother and some of the remaining sisters who had not already ran away with men at a young age lived in the house next door to them.
The girls' house had no running water, no electricity, no food, and a leaky roof. The girls ran an extension cord from the main house to their house and would all sleep together in a bed with a blow dryer to try to keep warm. Because there was no running water, they would all have to go to the bathroom in the coffee cans that they would keep outside in the back of the house.
The girls had no food in their house and would sometimes sneak over to the main house when no one was home to try to sneak a piece of food. They knew that every night the prince was served a home cooked meal by my grandmother and that there was bound to be leftovers. Eventually my grandmother caught on to the fact that they were stealing food and a large chain with a lock was placed around the refrigerator. One of my older aunts was able to get work in a local store when she was fourteen, and she would steal cupcakes every day to bring home to the other sisters so that they would have something to eat every day.
At some point, my mother and her older sister were moved back into the main house with my grandmother, her husband and the prince. My mother and her sister were given a small bedroom and were told that they were not allowed to use the lights in the bedroom. They also were not allowed to take a bath, because the prince needed all the water that he could get and money was apparently scarce.
My mother and her sister would go for days on end by taking baths in the local stream, but at least once a week they would sneak into the bathroom to take a quick bath. While everyone else was eating, my mother and aunt would both go into the bathroom and when each one of them flushed the toilet, they would let out a little bit of water in the tub. Then, they both quietly bathed in the itty bitty amount of water that was in the bathtub. They eventually were caught at their game and had the daylight beat out of them.
Somewhere along the line, some men from the government (who knows who they were) found out that my uncle was extremely intelligent and they came to take him to who knows where but my grandmother would not let him go. It was at that point that my grandmother told my aunts that they were not allowed to study or do their homework anymore for some reason. If they were caught studying, reading or doing homework, the daylight was beat out of them again. My mother and aunt used to steal batteries for flashlights so that they could do their homework and read my uncle's many books in their damp, moldy closet at night.
One day when my mother was more or less in junior high, it was raining heavily. My mother walked miles and miles home from school in the rain, and just as she was approaching her street, she looked up to see a car driving down the road. She could barely see from all of the rain in her eyes, and she could barely walk as the road flooded, but she managed to catch a glimpse of her mother driving by with her brother, waving in the rain. As the car passed, it covered her in mud.
That was the day that my mother decided to run away from home and live with one of her sisters, never speaking to her mother again until I was almost sixteen years old and her mother had a massive stroke which left her senseless.
My mother eventually met a man who promised her the moon, giving birth to me when she was 21 years old. Three years later, she gave birth to a boy. Two weeks after his birth, the son of a bitch left her high and dry.
And the cycle continued. But that, my friends, is a whole other story that is best saved for another day.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
If This Isn't Dysfunction, I'd Hate to See What Is...
Last Saturday was the impetus that started this whole situation with me feeling the need that I need to start a blog, as an outlet for my frustration with my family.
On Saturday I went to get my haircut from one of my aunts and she told me that my mother mentioned that her work is harassing her because she is the highest paid employee at the location and they are trying to cut costs. My aunt told me that she was worried about my mother because my mother has been having health problems over the years.
I got really worried about my mother, because that is what society says that is what daughters should do, right? I also got worried because I know that although my mother may be the highest paid employee, she most certainly has had a difficult life and has little money saved in the event that she is forced to retire early.
My brain started to run crazy with the possibility that my mother would have to retire early. A couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend mentioned that this might be a possibility and he stated to me, "You know that you will have to take care of her because your brother certainly won't". I've had that in the back of my mind for weeks.
My mother is only 54 and will be 55 next month, but she is in poor health. When I was a child she broke her back and she has had many neck and back problems over the years that are getting progressively worse as arthritis sets in her back. She also has a heart condition as well as knee and many other problems.
My mother has lived with a man for almost twenty years who is married to another woman. He's never bothered to get a divorce. He is retired from the military, getting a monthly retirement and he also works another job. Over the past couple of years I have become increasingly frustrated with the situation that she has nursed him to health through three heart attacks and a stroke, yet she is not married to him and will not receive benefits in the event that he passes away.
Saturday morning I called my mother and told her that her sister had mentioned her difficulties at work. My mom mentioned that her boyfriend was very sick with bronchitis and was not recovering well, so I decided to have a conversation with her about what might happen in the event that he passes away.
I told my mother, "Has it ever occurred to you that his wife might resurface after he dies and not even allow you to go to his burial? It's about time that he divorce her so that you can have legal rights over his burial, etc and you will also be financially protected, considering that his health problems have practically bankrupted you over the years".
My mother made excuse after excuse as to why he wasn't getting a divorce. I told her that I wanted to know how much she paid for her mortgage and other large bills in the event that something happened to him or she was forced to retire early. I expressed my concern that if they forced her to retire early that she wouldn't get health insurance. If she retires early, she will also only get half of her monthly check.
She told me that her mortgage was only 600 dollars per month, and I told her that I could commit to paying that monthly in the event that something happened and she had to retire early. Suddenly she said, "You are a greedy bitch. You just want to take my house and not give anything to your brother. All you care about is my money, and you didn't even care enough about how I was doing after my surgery".
Here we go again, I thought. And I just snapped.
"I hate to break it to you, but I make three times the amount of money as you, so I don't need your damn house or money. Normal people would actually feel grateful that I am trying to financially plan for the future in order to help you," I said.
"When are you going to stop letting these men fuck you around and not think of you?" I asked. When my father up and left her when I was three and my brother was two weeks old, his sorry ass financially broke her. Later he came back twenty years later demanding that she either sell the house or take out a loan on the house in order to give her half of its worth, although he had only lived there for four days. Years later, she had another boyfriend who proposed to her and after using some of her money to put as a down payment on a house that she could not afford alone, he left her high and dry and kept the money and the house.
Excuse, excuse, excuse, she made.
"Fine, if you want to die alone in the poor house, then that's your problem", I said right before she hung up on me.
Now, before you leave a comment that I am a selfish, mean and rude bitch, please just hold your horses until you read future posts about my mindset and events leading up to this conversation.
Sunday arrives, and I wake up with the flu. Literally, the flu-you know, h1n1? (Although I didn't know it was h1n1 until later, of course).
At some point I looked at my cell phone and saw that my mother had called four times in a row and left messages. I listened to one of the messages and she said, in a very condescending tone:
But I just lost it. I went totally crazy in my head, because I am at my wit's end with this crazy bitch. It wasn't even what she said so much, but it was how she said it. She said it with such disgust in her voice that it just royally pissed me off.
I called her and later my boyfriend told me that as soon as she picked up the phone I started yelling at her, "Who the hell do you think that you are calling me and leaving me such a disrespectful message?" I asked.
"How dare you! How dare you talk to me like this! I am the mother and I deserve to be spoken to with respect", and she hung up on me. As she was hanging up, I heard her tell her boyfriend, "Can you believe that she said..."
She of course has always flipped into third person and started talking about how she is the mother and deserves respect, while quoting the ten commandments.
At that point I decided to listen to the other two messages that she had left right after the first message. At the time she had left them all simultaneously, but I completely lost my temper after listening to the first message and didn't bother to listen to the next two.
I put the phone on speaker phone so that my boyfriend could hear the messages, because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't over-exaggerating. You see, when you have an abusive parent or someone in your life, they always love to turn it around on you and act like you are overreacting. So I needed proof.
All I can remember is seeing the look on my boyfriend's face as he was sweeping the floor and listening to the messages. He looked so shocked at what he was hearing.
I can't really remember all that she said, but a couple things that I took away from her yelling were: I am a bad daughter. I am a bad sister. I am a bad friend. Nobody likes me. I lack compassion. I am selfish. She hates me.
When I heard her say "I hate you" in such a disgusting way, I just knew that then and there was IT. I am not dealing with this crazy bitch anymore in my life. All because my cousin was in the hospital.
I find it so funny when I think back upon it that she had left all three of those messages, but when I called her I had heard only one. Yet she yelled at me "How dare you talk to me like this.." when I called her--even after she had just told me that she fucking hated me!
All my life she has said stuff like this, and when I get mad about it she says, "Oh, you know I didn't mean it. You take things too seriously".
So at that moment, I made the decision to close the door on my relationship with her. It's been a long time coming, and I am so relieved that I am cutting her off. I wrote her a letter telling her not to contact me anymore because I refuse to be in a dysfunctional relationship like this.
I went to bed (flu, remember?).
About an hour later, I received a telephone call from my cousin's house and I answered the phone. It was my mother. She said, "You need to get over here because Sara (my cousin) is calling the police on Pamela (my aunt)". My aunt grabbed the phone out of my cousin's hand and said, "Get over here NOW! She's a whore! I hate her!"
I'm so sick of this. And it was then and there that I decided that I am not going to have anything to do with my aunt, also. What the hell is wrong with these people, saying that they hate their daughters? I've never had children myself, but I take it very seriously when someone says that they hate me. It's unacceptable.
To make a long story short, my boyfriend drove me over there. My aunt had punched my cousin in the face (yes, the cousin who had just been discharged with pneumonia) because my cousin wouldn't allow my aunt to take her baby over her house for the evening. By the time I got there, the police were gone but my cousin asked us to drive over to my aunt's house and get the baby's ear medicine.
So I drove across town to my aunt's house and when I got there, my mom was sitting in the front yard.
But get this-she wanted to make small talk with me. She asked me one hundred questions and then said, "Gosh, what's your problem?"
"Are you serious? What's my problem?" I asked. "Did you not just yell at me and tell me that you hate me an hour ago? I'm done with this-you people are mentally ill and I can't deal with it anymore".
As I walked away she said, "You are a bad daughter. A bad sister".
I got into the car, rolled up the window and played music until my aunt came outside to give me the medicine.
Suddenly, when I rolled down the window to get the medicine, my mother yells out, "Have you taken your Toyota in to get the recall taken care of?"
WTF?!?!?!
Oh, and by the way, this was all on Valentine's Day, which is not surprising because both her and her sister always manage to ruin every one's special day or holiday. Literally-all hell breaks loose on every important day. (Not that Valentine's day is really important to me, but you know what I mean).
My mother didn't call me all week, but this last Saturday she called my telephone and didn't leave a message. On Tuesday I got a wacko Valentine's Day card from her that I would love to blog about later. I want absolutely nothing to do with her.
If this is not dysfunction, then I do not know what to think anymore.
On Saturday I went to get my haircut from one of my aunts and she told me that my mother mentioned that her work is harassing her because she is the highest paid employee at the location and they are trying to cut costs. My aunt told me that she was worried about my mother because my mother has been having health problems over the years.
I got really worried about my mother, because that is what society says that is what daughters should do, right? I also got worried because I know that although my mother may be the highest paid employee, she most certainly has had a difficult life and has little money saved in the event that she is forced to retire early.
My brain started to run crazy with the possibility that my mother would have to retire early. A couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend mentioned that this might be a possibility and he stated to me, "You know that you will have to take care of her because your brother certainly won't". I've had that in the back of my mind for weeks.
My mother is only 54 and will be 55 next month, but she is in poor health. When I was a child she broke her back and she has had many neck and back problems over the years that are getting progressively worse as arthritis sets in her back. She also has a heart condition as well as knee and many other problems.
My mother has lived with a man for almost twenty years who is married to another woman. He's never bothered to get a divorce. He is retired from the military, getting a monthly retirement and he also works another job. Over the past couple of years I have become increasingly frustrated with the situation that she has nursed him to health through three heart attacks and a stroke, yet she is not married to him and will not receive benefits in the event that he passes away.
Saturday morning I called my mother and told her that her sister had mentioned her difficulties at work. My mom mentioned that her boyfriend was very sick with bronchitis and was not recovering well, so I decided to have a conversation with her about what might happen in the event that he passes away.
I told my mother, "Has it ever occurred to you that his wife might resurface after he dies and not even allow you to go to his burial? It's about time that he divorce her so that you can have legal rights over his burial, etc and you will also be financially protected, considering that his health problems have practically bankrupted you over the years".
My mother made excuse after excuse as to why he wasn't getting a divorce. I told her that I wanted to know how much she paid for her mortgage and other large bills in the event that something happened to him or she was forced to retire early. I expressed my concern that if they forced her to retire early that she wouldn't get health insurance. If she retires early, she will also only get half of her monthly check.
She told me that her mortgage was only 600 dollars per month, and I told her that I could commit to paying that monthly in the event that something happened and she had to retire early. Suddenly she said, "You are a greedy bitch. You just want to take my house and not give anything to your brother. All you care about is my money, and you didn't even care enough about how I was doing after my surgery".
Here we go again, I thought. And I just snapped.
"I hate to break it to you, but I make three times the amount of money as you, so I don't need your damn house or money. Normal people would actually feel grateful that I am trying to financially plan for the future in order to help you," I said.
"When are you going to stop letting these men fuck you around and not think of you?" I asked. When my father up and left her when I was three and my brother was two weeks old, his sorry ass financially broke her. Later he came back twenty years later demanding that she either sell the house or take out a loan on the house in order to give her half of its worth, although he had only lived there for four days. Years later, she had another boyfriend who proposed to her and after using some of her money to put as a down payment on a house that she could not afford alone, he left her high and dry and kept the money and the house.
Excuse, excuse, excuse, she made.
"Fine, if you want to die alone in the poor house, then that's your problem", I said right before she hung up on me.
Now, before you leave a comment that I am a selfish, mean and rude bitch, please just hold your horses until you read future posts about my mindset and events leading up to this conversation.
Sunday arrives, and I wake up with the flu. Literally, the flu-you know, h1n1? (Although I didn't know it was h1n1 until later, of course).
At some point I looked at my cell phone and saw that my mother had called four times in a row and left messages. I listened to one of the messages and she said, in a very condescending tone:
Where the hell are you? Aunt Pamela is calling and saying Sara (my cousin) is in the hospital with pneumonia. They said you just barely went by her house yesterday. Where the hell are you? Why the hell didn't you notice that she was sick? Get your fucking ass over there now!!Of course I knew my cousin was sick, because I had caught the flu from her after visiting her the day before.
But I just lost it. I went totally crazy in my head, because I am at my wit's end with this crazy bitch. It wasn't even what she said so much, but it was how she said it. She said it with such disgust in her voice that it just royally pissed me off.
I called her and later my boyfriend told me that as soon as she picked up the phone I started yelling at her, "Who the hell do you think that you are calling me and leaving me such a disrespectful message?" I asked.
"How dare you! How dare you talk to me like this! I am the mother and I deserve to be spoken to with respect", and she hung up on me. As she was hanging up, I heard her tell her boyfriend, "Can you believe that she said..."
She of course has always flipped into third person and started talking about how she is the mother and deserves respect, while quoting the ten commandments.
At that point I decided to listen to the other two messages that she had left right after the first message. At the time she had left them all simultaneously, but I completely lost my temper after listening to the first message and didn't bother to listen to the next two.
I put the phone on speaker phone so that my boyfriend could hear the messages, because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't over-exaggerating. You see, when you have an abusive parent or someone in your life, they always love to turn it around on you and act like you are overreacting. So I needed proof.
All I can remember is seeing the look on my boyfriend's face as he was sweeping the floor and listening to the messages. He looked so shocked at what he was hearing.
I can't really remember all that she said, but a couple things that I took away from her yelling were: I am a bad daughter. I am a bad sister. I am a bad friend. Nobody likes me. I lack compassion. I am selfish. She hates me.
When I heard her say "I hate you" in such a disgusting way, I just knew that then and there was IT. I am not dealing with this crazy bitch anymore in my life. All because my cousin was in the hospital.
I find it so funny when I think back upon it that she had left all three of those messages, but when I called her I had heard only one. Yet she yelled at me "How dare you talk to me like this.." when I called her--even after she had just told me that she fucking hated me!
All my life she has said stuff like this, and when I get mad about it she says, "Oh, you know I didn't mean it. You take things too seriously".
So at that moment, I made the decision to close the door on my relationship with her. It's been a long time coming, and I am so relieved that I am cutting her off. I wrote her a letter telling her not to contact me anymore because I refuse to be in a dysfunctional relationship like this.
I went to bed (flu, remember?).
About an hour later, I received a telephone call from my cousin's house and I answered the phone. It was my mother. She said, "You need to get over here because Sara (my cousin) is calling the police on Pamela (my aunt)". My aunt grabbed the phone out of my cousin's hand and said, "Get over here NOW! She's a whore! I hate her!"
I'm so sick of this. And it was then and there that I decided that I am not going to have anything to do with my aunt, also. What the hell is wrong with these people, saying that they hate their daughters? I've never had children myself, but I take it very seriously when someone says that they hate me. It's unacceptable.
To make a long story short, my boyfriend drove me over there. My aunt had punched my cousin in the face (yes, the cousin who had just been discharged with pneumonia) because my cousin wouldn't allow my aunt to take her baby over her house for the evening. By the time I got there, the police were gone but my cousin asked us to drive over to my aunt's house and get the baby's ear medicine.
So I drove across town to my aunt's house and when I got there, my mom was sitting in the front yard.
But get this-she wanted to make small talk with me. She asked me one hundred questions and then said, "Gosh, what's your problem?"
"Are you serious? What's my problem?" I asked. "Did you not just yell at me and tell me that you hate me an hour ago? I'm done with this-you people are mentally ill and I can't deal with it anymore".
As I walked away she said, "You are a bad daughter. A bad sister".
I got into the car, rolled up the window and played music until my aunt came outside to give me the medicine.
Suddenly, when I rolled down the window to get the medicine, my mother yells out, "Have you taken your Toyota in to get the recall taken care of?"
WTF?!?!?!
Oh, and by the way, this was all on Valentine's Day, which is not surprising because both her and her sister always manage to ruin every one's special day or holiday. Literally-all hell breaks loose on every important day. (Not that Valentine's day is really important to me, but you know what I mean).
My mother didn't call me all week, but this last Saturday she called my telephone and didn't leave a message. On Tuesday I got a wacko Valentine's Day card from her that I would love to blog about later. I want absolutely nothing to do with her.
If this is not dysfunction, then I do not know what to think anymore.
Where Do I Even Begin?
I don't even know where to begin. All I know is that I am seriously frustrated with certain things that have been going on in my life lately that have to do with my family, and I just really want to have nothing to do with practically anyone in the family. To feel that I am at that point where I practically want to cut off contact with almost everyone in the family is a bit of a stressful feeling, to put it mildly.
As I stated, I don't even know where to begin. So maybe I will begin with last weekend and what started me on this path to try and control my anger when it comes to my family.
It's been a couple of years now that my anger has been building up to its breaking point when it comes to my mother. I have just been going through the motions when she calls me and practically every time that she calls me, I make some sort of excuse to get off the telephone. This excuse might include saying that I am driving and I need to concentrate, that I have to go to the bathroom, that I have another telephone call, and anything else that I might think of at any given moment.
It seems that for the past couple of years that I can barely talk to her for longer than five minutes on the telephone without saying quickly, "Okay, nice talking to you, bye!" and quickly hanging up before I scream at her. I don't even really want to talk to her at all anymore.
I sometimes wonder if I am just a complete asshole, or whether I am justified in not really wanting to interact with her.
Last Christmas she went to visit my brother out of town and I was so relieved that I didn't have to see her. I had to go pick her up from the airport (which was a huge issue that I will get to later) and we ended up getting into an argument. I told her that I would stop by to get my Christmas presents the next day, and to this day I have never gone.
A couple of weeks ago she called to tell me that they found a lump in her armpit and that she would have surgery. She had the surgery and honestly, I never even bothered to call her to see what they found in her armpit. Because I'm at this strange point in my life where I just wish that she would disappear.
So maybe once again I am an asshole, or maybe I am just so beyond having to deal with dysfunction anymore. I've got this all mixed up in my head and it's driving me crazy. I am an introspective person, and it is not above me to analyze myself to see if I am contributing to a situation or being a selfish asshole. Yet there is another part of me that thinks that I can't think clearly about this whole situation because I am so used to all of the dysfunction. It's for this reason that I have decided to blog about it-to try to get my head straight.
In the next post I will write about the recent drama that just recently kicked off this blog.
As I stated, I don't even know where to begin. So maybe I will begin with last weekend and what started me on this path to try and control my anger when it comes to my family.
It's been a couple of years now that my anger has been building up to its breaking point when it comes to my mother. I have just been going through the motions when she calls me and practically every time that she calls me, I make some sort of excuse to get off the telephone. This excuse might include saying that I am driving and I need to concentrate, that I have to go to the bathroom, that I have another telephone call, and anything else that I might think of at any given moment.
It seems that for the past couple of years that I can barely talk to her for longer than five minutes on the telephone without saying quickly, "Okay, nice talking to you, bye!" and quickly hanging up before I scream at her. I don't even really want to talk to her at all anymore.
I sometimes wonder if I am just a complete asshole, or whether I am justified in not really wanting to interact with her.
Last Christmas she went to visit my brother out of town and I was so relieved that I didn't have to see her. I had to go pick her up from the airport (which was a huge issue that I will get to later) and we ended up getting into an argument. I told her that I would stop by to get my Christmas presents the next day, and to this day I have never gone.
A couple of weeks ago she called to tell me that they found a lump in her armpit and that she would have surgery. She had the surgery and honestly, I never even bothered to call her to see what they found in her armpit. Because I'm at this strange point in my life where I just wish that she would disappear.
So maybe once again I am an asshole, or maybe I am just so beyond having to deal with dysfunction anymore. I've got this all mixed up in my head and it's driving me crazy. I am an introspective person, and it is not above me to analyze myself to see if I am contributing to a situation or being a selfish asshole. Yet there is another part of me that thinks that I can't think clearly about this whole situation because I am so used to all of the dysfunction. It's for this reason that I have decided to blog about it-to try to get my head straight.
In the next post I will write about the recent drama that just recently kicked off this blog.
Hello World!
Hello there-
You might know me elsewhere on the internet, or you might not. Whichever it is-thanks for stopping by.
Lately I have been dealing with a few issues with my crazy, wacko, mentally ill family that has pretty much caused me to pull out my hair. Maybe I am getting to that point in my life where I just don't want to deal with other peoples' dysfunction, but it seems that I am at my wit's end.
The only way that I can deal with some members of my family without ripping their head off is to write about it. Writing seems to be a therapy for me and I'm at the point in my life where I need to work out some issues that I have been carrying around all my life in regards to my family. I have always been the type of person who craves openness and honesty, and always has the urge to say whatever is on my mind.
So welcome to my therapy sessions. I don't plan on keeping this blog as a long-term project, but I plan on writing on it until I have had a little closure in my life.
All of my life one of my cousins and I used to laugh and joke at the craziness of our family, and we used to say that we wished that we could make a documentary. It's a standing joke between her and I. In fact, for the past couple of years we have gotten together some of my aunts and have written down some of the stories that they have told us, often joking that we would include it in our documentary.
I often wonder if my family is really that crazy, or whether I just have a low tolerance for bullshit. Well, after I write a little I will let you decide-and your feedback is greatly appreciated. I really want to know if I am over-exaggerating (or not) in regards to their dysfunction. According to my mother, I am over-exaggerating and I am the most privileged kid in the whole damn universe. I suppose that this blog is also an attempt to sort out some of those issues, since I consider myself to be pretty introspective.
You might be asking yourself why the title of this blog is called "A Prince Was Born". Well, I will get to that sooner or later because it has to do with one of the major dysfunctions in my family that continues to perpetuate itself over and over for generations. In a nutshell, our family is comprised of strong women as well as weak, inept men who have been coddled by these strong women. Oh, you will learn more later because it is a theme that will arise over and over again.
Thanks for stopping by!
You might know me elsewhere on the internet, or you might not. Whichever it is-thanks for stopping by.
Lately I have been dealing with a few issues with my crazy, wacko, mentally ill family that has pretty much caused me to pull out my hair. Maybe I am getting to that point in my life where I just don't want to deal with other peoples' dysfunction, but it seems that I am at my wit's end.
The only way that I can deal with some members of my family without ripping their head off is to write about it. Writing seems to be a therapy for me and I'm at the point in my life where I need to work out some issues that I have been carrying around all my life in regards to my family. I have always been the type of person who craves openness and honesty, and always has the urge to say whatever is on my mind.
So welcome to my therapy sessions. I don't plan on keeping this blog as a long-term project, but I plan on writing on it until I have had a little closure in my life.
All of my life one of my cousins and I used to laugh and joke at the craziness of our family, and we used to say that we wished that we could make a documentary. It's a standing joke between her and I. In fact, for the past couple of years we have gotten together some of my aunts and have written down some of the stories that they have told us, often joking that we would include it in our documentary.
I often wonder if my family is really that crazy, or whether I just have a low tolerance for bullshit. Well, after I write a little I will let you decide-and your feedback is greatly appreciated. I really want to know if I am over-exaggerating (or not) in regards to their dysfunction. According to my mother, I am over-exaggerating and I am the most privileged kid in the whole damn universe. I suppose that this blog is also an attempt to sort out some of those issues, since I consider myself to be pretty introspective.
You might be asking yourself why the title of this blog is called "A Prince Was Born". Well, I will get to that sooner or later because it has to do with one of the major dysfunctions in my family that continues to perpetuate itself over and over for generations. In a nutshell, our family is comprised of strong women as well as weak, inept men who have been coddled by these strong women. Oh, you will learn more later because it is a theme that will arise over and over again.
Thanks for stopping by!
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