I'm so fucking sick and tired of my mother's shit. I was fine and dandy, even with QP out of work and with a broken arm I was just, okay, well this sucks but we still got our shit locked down, we have resources, we know where to get help, we can get through the rough patch and come out on top. We always do. Even when we have to take two steps back, we still get 2 or 3 steps forward. We're broke, but we got love and support so fuck it. Then she shows up today to do some work on the house and ends up flipping her shit at me because Jordan's not working, threatening to sell the house if we're late on a payment, and now I'm in panic mode again. Basically, she's stretched too thin financially because she's got a house on the lake that's value is under what she paid for it, she's got a huge house in the boonies that she usually rents out but is currently empty, she sold the other rental and bought this place so we could live in it, and fix it up while paying rent, and eventually flip it, but if we miss a payment and she looses everything because she can't keep up with her other payments it's OUR FAULT. It's our fault because Jordan didn't stick with a terrible job that worked him to the point where he could never see his kids, and he was snappish and irritable to the point of no being able to talk to him at all when he was home, then the job yelled at HIM for working all that overtime they GAVE him. It's my fault for not having a job outside my art, even though I can't drive, even though I have mental disabilities that make normal work and socializing difficult and exhausting, and child care would cost more than I could possibly make. I feel as if I'm a juggler who just had some yuck drop in on their act and start throwing more balls at me... with a baseball pitching machine. I also feel like she sees me as a failed investment and not, you know, her kid. I'm so fucking tired. The sooner my friends and I can pool enough money together to by some land and build an eco community, the sooner I can cut and run and never have to deal with her again.
I want to be happy and celebrating because I broke $100 on my Patreon but it isn't there. It's all dried up. I'm emotionally flat lining. I can't even dredge up the ability to be upset, I'm just vaguely something, and my head aches right behind my eyes and I got heart burn. I keep reading the things I sent to her and thinking I'm a mean, terrible daughter, but I didn't know how else to say anything. I've tried talking to her like a normal person and it doesn't go through. If I'm wrong I don't know how to be right, I don't know what to do anymore. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MSal5Hw8RAX7DXtAujT3cuvkSRI9PvaFdCH0mcD8x9Q/edit#
I think it's telling that you're explaining things at length and in detail and she's just... condescending to you and brushing you off in a short paragraph at a time. Mean and terrible, no - you sound like you're at the end of your rope with someone who refuses to listen to you, and no wonder. (Brushing off your husband's BROKEN ARM is just. I can't even.) Hugs if you want 'em.
I think I can't parse the last line of what your mom is saying? anyway whyyyyyy is she putting so much pressure on you guys when she has a house she could work on getting rented out to help her with payments? like I'm not being stupid rn right? that's what you said she has another house she usually rents out that's empty rn? also fucking arnika is for bruises and swelling, maybe at most a twisted ankle or a pulled muscle or something. what the fucking fuck??? Like herbal remedies are fine and dandy but fractures are literally about ten steps beyond the line where you put down the creams and tinctures and get a real fucking doctor involved. *hugs*
Yeah. I mean shit fucked up and the reason it was empty is because there was a pluming problem and she need to tear into the wall and replace stuff. She's got a showing for it on Saturday, but once again it's followed up ominously by "But I don't know how that will go, so he needs to find a job!" Like, no shit he needs to find a job. Thanks for pointing that out. Again. She's ALSO unemployed right now, and frequently points that out as a reason she can't float it while we get shit taken care of, and like, I know this is meant as a factual statement of ability, and I know that's not her fault that the union didn't give her any work this year. But at the same time, my husband busted his ass at a job that treated him like shit for over a year, and did the same at his previous job for three years, and the same for every job before that. And whenever he's been unemployed it's only been two or three weeks between jobs because he does all that "hit the streets hard" shit. Her messages are short because she's on her phone, but I still feel like she's missing the point. Her most recent email to me was: "You are valuable to me and to art lovers everywhere. Your my only child. Even if I don't hug much cause I am a very guarded person. I'm sorry that I failed To say I love you enough." And she's missing the point again. The point isn't she needs to be my lovey-dovey, the point is that she needs to start respecting me and my husband and acknowledging that we actually do work as hard as we can. Ugh, idk I feel like maybe I'm just not presenting her side of things well enough or like. That I'm skewing everything to present my side in a better light or something, and that I'm horrible and spoiled and ungrateful.
You're not a terrible daughter. She's not listening to you, and she keeps flipping between what looks like a lot of catastrophic thinking (I mean, "they'll take your kids away"? Really?) and dismissive, guilt-trippy for-your-own-good "advice" that isn't even slightly useful. Concern trolling at its finest, ugh. I have whiplash just reading it. And NNGGH all that insidious pandering to your ego crap. Even that stuff has barbs in it under all the fluff, and her "apology" doesn't seem sincere at all. Any time my mother apologized like that, using that weepy tone, the bare bones of it was always something like, "see, I apologized for this one thing that isn't really applicable to this situation but is designed to tug at your emotions, now you should forgive me everything because I'm apologizing and upset". Because if she focuses on that, the "you are valuable to me" stuff, she doesn't have to think about or respond to what you're actually saying. But you're not terrible. It's not terrible to be angry with her or to tell her what's on your mind. It's not mean to demand that she respect and listen to you. It's as you said: times are tough all over for everybody, but you're working your way through and you have resources and support and a really awesome patreon that's getting more and more successful. And I'm not saying that your mom doesn't have a legit reason to be worried about things... but I wonder if, underneath all the stress of it all, your mother is also displeased because you're not surviving the way she thinks you should--like, in her world, making a living off your art and getting help from friends and resources doesn't count! To her, it only counts if you have a job and your husband has a job, because that's How It Should Be, and she just can't understand why that magically can't happen. I'm so sorry you have to go through this. :( *giant hugs* If you wanna vent, my inbox is always open.
I think this is a huge part of it. She's the picture perfect representation of baby boomer: white, able bodied, solidly upper-middle class her whole life. Jordan and I married young, looked into collage but got scared off by the high cost and economic uncertainty (which, thank fuck, or we could have been even more in the hole rn), got jobs, lost those jobs and our apartment with the crash (while I was pregnant with our first kid no less), had a kid, had to live with with his grandmother for two years while we filed for bankruptcy then made back what we lost and got back on our feet, moved, had another kid, and moved again. We've been a poor, lower class, struggling family for as long as we've been a family, and she's very much still operating on the just world fallacy that's common to her generation. We've busted our asses trying to do more than just tread water, dealing with every curve ball life throws at us, but she doesn't see that or acknowledge it. we're still struggling, so obviously it must be because we're doing something wrong. Spending too much on frivolous things, or not working hard enough, or not tightening our belts enough. There was a comment she tossed at us when we first moved in. We set up our new account with the electric company and they had us pay a deposit because we'd been late a couple times at the last place. Nothing serious, we always got it paid, but sometimes we'd have to call them up and be be like, "yo, paycheck doesn't get here until after the due date for this bill, you guys okay with getting it in a week?" But she responds to the information of we have to pay a deposit to these guys with, "Oh, they only do that because you're naughty, and didn't pay your bills on time." That word right there, Naughty, summed how she thinks of us up. We are naughty, stupid children and if only we would listen to her, and take her advice, everything would magically get better and we'd stop being poor. I'm nearly thirty, I have my own kids and needs and friends, but in her mind I'm still a stumbling kid. I hate so much that she uses money against me as a weapon. God, if I'm every this mean and nasty to my own kids I'm giving every single person blanket permission to punch me. Repeatedly.
I'm done. I'm fucking done. Asked mom to stop by with a copy of the lease because they want it for getting temp state benefits so the bitch can get her money and I couldn't find mine. She takes that opportunity to needle me and then goes, "the cats not in the lease. You want to talk about respect, that's disrespecting me." And that's it. No apology, no trying to talk shit out. Just finding another way to dig at me and make me feel like shit. Like. A cat. An already litter trained and well socialized cat that I thought would be good for a therapy animal for my kid, because she been wanting a pet she can play with and cuddle. I don't want to move with Eris in school, I don't want to pull her out of a place she's enjoying and where she's making friends and stuff. But end of the school year, I'm done and out. I don't know why I thought this would work. I don't know why I thought I could give her a chance and this time she'd be better. I'm moving and I'm deleting her contact info from my phone. No more.
Thank you guys. I just. I don't know what to say either. I love this house, I love the area, I love my kids school and our neighbors. But the landlord is untenable. I was honestly planing on spending several years here while building up to buy our own place. God I hate this. I hate her. I don't know what to do to fix this, just want her to go away.
Minor annoyance today. Mom's been behaving better, probably mostly because I'm doing exactly what I knew I could and Handling My Shit and the horrible meltdown apocalypse she predicted didn't happen. After my email blow up she even apologized to Jordan and said something along the lines of, "I know you work hard to support your family," which is good. But then this week she left this book in a pile of other stuff she was bringing over from her house: I'm just. I know she doesn't understand. I know she's not doing it on purpose and that her thought process goes, "child is hurt by past things, find book about letting go of past things to help child." She has absolutely no idea that it comes of as the Vriska-esque passive-aggression of "GEEEZ it's in the past and I said sorry so why can't you just LET IT GO already!" Of course she NEVER ACKNOWLEDGES that the reason it keeps hurting me is because she keeps REPEATING THE BEHAVIOR. It's not in the past. It keeps happening. I'm not "Not letting go" I've been consistently trying to move on and act in good faith toward her, and she repeats the pattern. I just don't know how to get her to understand this. I am nearly thirty and she still doesn't understand it, and that's why I'm thinking that the best thing to do is to cut ties entirely when I'm financially able, because it doesn't make sense to keep puting myself in a position where I can be hurt more.
UUUGGHHHHHH. I have no snark. My whole brain is just screaming that, and 10,000 monkeys are rage crapping everywhere.
