things grim's mom has done recently (advice request w a side of liveblogging)

recent experience has given me hope that documenting the crazy might help manage it, so here goes

for background:
we're all pretty sure my mom has bpd. she might also be bipolar, but she refuses that diagnosis bc she believes she only has adhd. (I have no idea if the two can be co-morbid, but my mother makes a strong case for it). she currently lives alone w her two dogs and cat, but while I was in high school and siblings were in college/law school, she and I lived together in Baltimore. that sucked.

I currently live w my dad, sister and brother in law, plus all of our animals. mom really resents this, but she and dad are divorced, she hates my sister's husband(and also my sister really resents her for the years of emotional and occasionally physical abuse that my sister got the worst of while we were all still living together), and I will never live w her again. she and dad have a v amicable divorce, so she feels totally comfortable demanding that dad "pay her back" for whatever thing that dad paid for in the first place, or tearfully asking him for a loan (which she will forget about ever receiving)

my brother has his own house less than a mile away from her, and his attempts at setting boundaries have only convinced her that she should stop showing up uninvited while he's at home. as such, she essentially colonizes his house whenever he leaves town for work or vacation and I'm there to petsit for him. she also does her laundry at his house while he's at work bc in five years of having her own house she still hasn't cleaned it enough for her to feel comfortable having repair guys over to install her washer and dryer.

basically, mom's whole thing these days is how none of us love her bc we won't do things for her/entertain her/clean her house

edit: if anyone has advice or comments, that'd be great bc this status quo fucking sucks

edit 2x combob:

edit 3x fuck I need to sort this by time period and stuff

 

today mom called us at 6 pm to tell us that the symphony was playing the music of Indiana Jones at 7:30 if we wanted to go w her. nevermind that we live an hour outside of town and we'd have to leave right that instant if we wanted to be about ten minutes late. it wasn't even worth mentioning that I woke up w a migraine this morning and was still recovering, bc there was no way to actually get there. anyways, she wanted me to call her back w an answer after telling the rest of the household

and after I finished telling my sister, our brother (who mom did not invite, even though he actually lives in town) called, so it was probably twenty minutes before anyone called mom back. that clearly meant that none of us love her and we didn't call her back (even though we did) bc we were trying to get out of doing stuff w her bc we don't ever want to see her again

-______-

 

went to brunch for sister's birthday today, then to brother's house for cake. mom was told and invited, but said "oh, I might be working that day"

she also didn't actually call or txt my sister on the day of her birthday for the second straight year

then, this morning while everyone was getting ready to leave, she texted to say that she could get a cab if we have room at our table for her (last time we had a family thing, we got a smaller table after she told us that she wasn't going to come, then surprised us by showing up anyways). she texted again less than a minute later to say "oh forget it, you've had nothing nice to say."

both my brother and dad offered to pick her up to take her to the restaurant w them, but that was apparently not enough? so we all just shrugged and decided not to play whatever game she's playing

 

I'm on the phone w her rn. not a word on how she's been refusing to acknowledge her own kid's birthday. >_______>

 

so, we have txts saying that she wasn't going to come bc we've "had nothing nice to say" to her. only, now she's saying that she didn't come bc she's had the flu for a week. she sent my sister a txt while we were on our way home saying that it was best that she didn't come bc she didn't want to expose the grandparents to whatever she has. and, just, fine. she's terrible about taking care of her own health. we get that. we also get that she really likes using it against us when she doesn't want to do something, or wants to manipulate us into something, and none of us are going to play that game.

but the constant rewriting of reality is really getting to me. we have her txts! I know she's lying bc I can find where she said earlier that it was our fault, and bc I know that she never said anything about being sick this week until that txt to my sister.

sister and I are currently really angry at mom x.X

on the plus side, the stupid argument between sister and I that's been brewing all day has been nipped in the bud (we were both being cranky and bratty at each other at the same time bc we're sisters and also currently living together)

 

just talked to mom. highlights regarding her absence at sister's birthday lunch:

mom: "I've apologized, there's nothing else I can do"
me: "apologies don't mean anything if you don't seem to understand the problem"
mom: "the problem is that no one will help me!"

 

me whenever I read about your mom:

 

s a m e

my sister and I have a list of stupid shit she's said over the years. my personal fave is "who the hell speaks Chinese anyways?"

 

"your brother wouldn't be straight if he slept w a bisexual girl"

(regarding the receptionist at a repair company she pissed off when her a/c was broken) "she was asian, not latina. I know the difference between asian and latina cadences"

(same situation as the above) "I didn't cuss her out, I just couldn't understand her"

"your dad and I would still be married if he would have just come over and cleaned the house" (after they were separated and he was living in an apartment)

#reasons why I drink

 

got my sister's permission to talk about some of the other shit, bc she wants perspective too

the main other shit being the way mom treats my sister's husband, which is spectacularly shitty. she was relatively nice to him at sister's law school graduation, and thanked him for supporting my sister through that, but that's the only time she's ever been not terrible to him. which is esp sad bc brother-in-law is now hands down the nicest member of our family.

but like, on their wedding day she pulled him aside to do a non-apology and bait him into apologizing to her for some unexplained rudeness and I'm still p shocked by that

 

apparently at some point this weekend a bat got into mom's house, and her cat has never been happier than those few hours when she was hunting it.

so now, I have to go to her house tomorrow to find the bat and fix the circuit breaker that's been flipped for two weeks bc mom can't clean her garage and I'm the only one small enough to get back there. my other choice is to go through more than six months worth of mail that she hasn't taken care of bc the mail slot is in the garage door, but considering that that would involve digging through more than my body weight in mail in 100 degree heat in a neighborhood that's absolutely infested w lizards (which I cannot stand bc phobia + anxiety issues), I've already packed a box of latex gloves for the bat search.

mom's going to get her pets taken to the vet for their rabies shots, which expire in a few weeks anyways, but we're also hoping that the bat wasn't rabid to begin w. we're also hoping that the bat is actually dead, bc none of us is in any way prepared to deal w a live bat. well, the cat might be, but that's not actually helpful in this case.

 

good luck with the bat, one got into my dad's house recently and i had to get it out armed with nothing but a tennis racket and a medium-sized towel

was not fun

 

@Ipuntya I would imagine not! good thinking on going in armed, though

luckily there weren't any bats, live or dead, to be found at mom's house. so I got off mostly scott free but for a pulled muscle from slipping on packing material in the garage when I un-snopped the circuit breaker. and probably a few nightmares over the horror of her cat's litter box, but that is Not My Responsibility and I refuse to clean her house for her ever again. I'm her daughter, not her maid. Dad and sister both agree w this decision, so hopefully it's not just me being a lazy asshole

 

mom's newest idea is that I should move in w my brother so she can come over and visit all the time! ._________.

also, she says she and dad might have had a chance to "start over" on their relationship if he paid as much attention to her as he does to us, his kids. (they've been divorced ten years)

 

sister and brother in law are staying at brother's house until friday morning. mom is mad about this bc it means she can't go over and colonize his house like she does when I'm the one babysitting his dog. (brother has explicitly asked sister to make sure mom doesn't do this)

mom also called me this evening, saying that I didn't need to go to her house tomorrow to go through her mail bc she didn't want to bring any more stuff into her house until she's cleaned it. she called again half an hour later to tearfully tell me that she was just going to clean her own house and take responsibility for her own mess, and she never wanted to talk to me again.

what is logic anymore?

 

just talked to la madre again. had to explain to her why I will never clean her house for her again, even if she paid me and was working on it at the same time.

me: "remember how you said you'd never do any sort of exercise thing [like hiring a personal trainer] w dad bc you thought he'd put all of his weight issues on you? well, same thing here"
her: "yeah, but I'd be paying you and working on it too."

.......

I just. don't even know where to start w this? there's just so much to unpack here. like, to I start w how she's projecting like a fucking IMAX, since she's blamed dad for her own weight issues for as long as I can remember, or do I go straight to "what the hell did you think you'd be doing w dad and a personal trainer that doesn't fit this situation?

...

wait...

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

aaaaaaand I just squicked myself. brb, scrubbing brain w bleach

 

fuck, so much has happened since I last posted here. give me a min, but I have to edit out personal info from screenshots before I post anything. this post is mostly just a reminder to myself to do the thing @__________@

 

for reference, in the screenshots, "CL" is my mom, "SL" is my sister and "JL" is my brother. any other identifying info is blurred, obvs

so, good news, my sister got a job! and it's across the state so she won't be living w dad and I! (we're all v tired of each other, tbh) bad news, since she needed to drive across the state to get there and have a car, and no one trusts the car we bought used ten years ago to make it that far (also it smelled like melted crayons and no one knows why) so dad and sister decided to trade it in for a slightly newer used car. only problem was, melted crayon car was still in mom's name, and we couldn't find our copy of the title from the last time we considered selling it. while mom originally said she'd do anything to help my sister move, actually asking her to go to the dmv prompted this series of messages:

Spoiler: big images and passive-aggression

this was on monday. sister and brother in law intended to leave on saturday, and wanted to get the car taken care of no later than thursday*. sister then gave ima the requested info, and called to make sure that was all she needed, which resulted in this message:

Spoiler: wtf mom

which, you know, fine. just. fine. by that point, it was still monday and everyone had already had enough of this shit. we were all trying to ignore the whole trading someone else taking responsibility for her house's latest catastrophe for one document, and the manipulative attempt to pull uninvolved parties like my brother (who was on a bromantic cruise at the time w his best friend since like middle school) and me into a fight. but my sister calls to check to see if there's anything else in the way of mom doing what she'd promised to do, and that's too manipulative?

unfortunately, that's p much par for the course w how mom treats my sister. mom's always considered one of us to be the good child, another to be the bad child, and the last flew under the radar, and that's been my brother, sister and me, respectively (in birth order, too)

eventually she calmed down enough to start working on the problem, which ended up w her deciding the v next day that it was easier for her if she just let someone else do the work:

Spoiler: actually one of her more reasonable reactions

she ended up bartering her signature on whatever forms they needed for this for dad having lunch w her. (ftr, they're divorced) and at lunch, she ended up not eating and spent the entire time bitching to dad about everything she could think of and not letting him get a word in edgewise, which is p standard behavior for her.

the next day, she returned to trying to get someone else (read: me) to take responsibility for her house's latest problem, which I still don't know the details of and I spent the last two days overseeing part of the repairs. something involving the air conditioner and water damage on the ceiling and walls. she wanted my sister to bring me in when she went to the dmv w the paperwork dad acquired so I could "help by sitting w her as she cleaned." upon finding out that my sister left w/o me bc I was taking a nap bc new anxiety med, and I could help out the next day instead, she sent this:

Spoiler

(Lessa was one of our dogs when I was a kid)

which, again, fine. I don't even have an actual response to her threatening to donate all of her stuff to the synagogue's garage sale or charity bc she makes that threat at least twice a month. so, whatever. at least my sister got what she needed to get out the door, which she finally managed to do on sunday morning. she starts her new job tomorrow, and we're all v excited for her 38D

so, of course, sunday afternoon met w another appliance breakage at mom's house:

Spoiler: eyeroll

followed a few hours later by her sending us a news article, bc why tf not

this time it was her a/c, even though that had just been repaired last week bc it supposedly caused the water damage to her ceiling and walls. and if that sounds slightly improbable to anyone, well, turns out it wasn't broken again, she just actually needed me to be at her house to meet the repair guys, and was playing on my concern for her dogs' safety in the heat (I really shouldn't have fallen for it, since if it were actually a problem she'd have taken the dogs to her bf's house like she did last time the a/c died). anyways, I've spent today and yesterday at her house, and she wants me to come in tomorrow at like 9 AM (which is before dad even leaves the house and I don't drive). which, fuck no. not happening. so I'll go back thursday and let in whichever repair person she's scheduled, and then I'll take a cab across town and get a few new ear piercings that will have the dual benefit of looking awesome and making mom scream >=3

 

This sounds distressingly similar to my mom. Take for example...

Mom: Come to a public Seder with me. I'm all alone in the world.
Me: I'd rather do Seder with dad at home. I promised to cook everything thing and [brother] already agreed to go with you.
Mom: Say you'll come to Seder with me or I'll kill myself.