Estrangement from My Mother *Part 2*

Rabbit Fish.  This will make sense later on.

 

Maybe this chart will help clarify the fambly for you:

dad	Alexis
	Anne
	Judith
	Casey
mom	Leslie
	Georgia

 So you can see where the sisters fall on the 'who has what DNA' chart.  Keep in mind that all of these people were a unit before I joined up at age 6.  I understand that I had actually been around my blood sisters previously, but it must've been age 0 through 3? and I have no real bonding memories of that time.

So we left off after the beach lunch debacle.  Read part one here.  the next day:

•  Mike and I went to Anne's house to hang out with her family for a while before heading over to mom's.  The niece who didn't know I was blood family was there, as was her father, Bill, my brother-in-law (Judith's husband).  He was in town on business, and was driving back right then with Mia (niece).  We hugged hello and goodbye and they took off.  An hour or so later Georgia (sister staying with mom for a few days to help pack) called me to tell me that any time was a good time to come over, as they had just gotten back from lunch with Bill and Mia.  This made me tilt my head again, and when I hung up I asked Anne if she had known about this lunch - because remember, Bill had just left Anne's house and was in a hurry to drive back to Sonoma and get a start on the drive, and nothing was said about lunch with mom, but we both just sorta said 'huh' and let it go.  I left with Mike for mom's house.
• We arrive at the house and Bill and Mia are still there talking to mom.  I smile at Bill and say 'I didn't know you were gonna be here!' because that is the natural thing to say, right?  AND I don't care that he went to lunch, small groups are better, whatever.  He says 'well, I just didn't want to make a big deal out of it at Anne's house' TRIANGULATION NATION.  I only shrugged and hugged them both goodbye again and filed that away and la de dah.
• There are boxes already packed and taped shut with Georgia's name on them in the dining room.  I instantly think 'wonder what that crap is', and then I mentally shrugged again because I do not want anything in that house anyway, and maybe she was just getting stuff ready to go, but it seemed secretive to me.  Whether or not anything in those boxes was a secret, it triggered me more and thus it was a useful event.  I'm certain, actually, that there was nothing nefarious in those boxes.  It is a useful event because it made me face all of this stuff at the same time.  SECRETS.  I'm not a fan.
• Mike was busting his ass moving furniture into Georgia's truck and hauling boxes and stuff, and when he sat down to rest mom started in asking him about his weight.  I didn't hear the whole conversation, and he was fine by himself (and too much of a grown man to need or want my help) but I wanted to fucking kill her, she is so weird about weight and everyone should be anorexic like her.
• We were in the spare room and Mike was sitting there, and mom asked me where I lie out to get so tan.  (she is standing too close to me at this point, really looking at my face) this triggers me and in my head I am saying 'this is a trap.  What in the fuck is she really asking.  I lie out by the pool sometimes but I told her I walk 3 or more miles a day.  Where is this going.) you know, like a normal child of a narc, sensing a trap.  SHE senses my hesitation and gets all up in my face, like SERIOUSLY up in my face!  and starts going 'um hem urm hem um' as if those were the noises I was making.  Hard to describe but she was MOCKING ME for my hesitation.  I *bleeped* past it (in retrospect I do that to avoid conflict, learned defense) and I said blah blah "plus I'm 1/4 full blood Mexican, I tan easily".  She immediately interrupted me (I KNEW THAT WOULD PISS HER OFF - back in the day being Mexican was seen as being derogatory, prejudice has no logic) and said 'not to correct you, but your grandmother [dad's mother] was SPANISH.  <--this had long been dad's contention.  HOWEVER she was Mexican, my grandfather met and married her in Arizona, on the border of Mexico ANYWHOZLE I told her no, the woman was Mexican.  I have her records from Ancestry.com.  "Well, do you know her maiden name??" <--snotty voice "yes, it was Ramirez.  Jesusita Ramirez Henderson."  "well, your dad just always liked that link to Spain" BECAUSE HE REWROTE HIS HISTORY FUCKING CHRIST.  And that was her best argument?  But it was the mocking thing, right in my face, with her eyes just examining my face minutely for any lie, or chink in my armor...  I still don't know what her point was in my being tan but I successfully deflected all that with the remark about Mexican vs Spanish.
• That night at dinner I was sitting between Anne and Georgia, and Georgia started talking about getting very emotional that our childhood home was being sold.  Anne and I were again like that dog
  
• wha da fuq you sayin?
• I started to say "I don't have the same emotional attachment to that place" (again trying to talk to fish at the aquarium) but I remembered in time and just started saying 'uh huh uh huh' and let it go.  (Anne and I have discussed contacting the new owners and telling them to burn sage and pour salt around the house, lol)
• I let Anne know what Bill had said - the "I just didn't want to make a big deal of it at Anne's house" and we both just boggled at that.  This is a big issue which I'm sure you can guess, but it may have actually been THE last straw.
• Georgia pointed out a small box of percussion instruments - maracas, a bongo drum, some other clackity musical things, and asked me if I wanted them.  I said no, perhaps little Ericson (my grand nephew, 3 yrs old) would like them?  Georgia looked askance and said 'don't you think he'll just break them?!' and I started to talk to the aquarium, I admit it - I said something about how 'you were going to donate them to a thrift store, da fuq?' but I stopped myself and just pushed the box over to the donate area and moved along.
• I had driven up to OC and paid for a hotel room in order to go to mom's house and speak to her about movers vs. renting a U-Haul.  When I got there mom informed me she had already had two companies out and had their quotes.  So my involvement was unnecessary.  I would think that someone other than mom knew this was going down.  Mom would have told Georgia or Leslie or even Judith that she had had movers out to estimate stuff - and everyone has been on emails where we all know who is doing what, that I was going to lead the moving portion.  Why wasn't I informed?  Did whoever it was think that I was going to drop the ball (that old thinking of me as the scapegoat again!) - is that why Bill was over there?  I don't give a fuck about helping, the point is SECRETS.

These are a few examples of narc stuff, and of Different Species stuff.  All of this took me over 24 hours to process.  I had a crying jag on my patio on Sunday, just getting to the root of all of it.  Tears of final frustration with it - not sadness.

I can no longer make any effort to be around some of my family.  It's as if I have been PULLING and tugging a barge up a stream, and I was responsible for making it move.  I just realized the rope was actually attached to a solid wall, no movement possible.

I let go of the rope.

I am now estranged from my mom.  I am not sending a letter I changed my mind.  See the next post.  I sent a letter outlining why I am done with my mother, but I left out all the other crap - one thing at a time, I am not leaving in a huff, there will be no statements or whatever.  I just realized that my mom is, as y'all know, a narc.  Plain and simple.  I have decided that even for a relationship with my sisters, being around her is not possible for me.  Anybody who triggers *that* feeling in my head and my gut is not going to be around me.  This is more of a quiet decision, than anything angry or emotional at all.  One doesn't willingly hold a poisonous snake.  I don't want to visit them behind glass at a zoo, either.  They can live somewhere else, I am not interested in snakes, not even as blog material.  She is moving into that home, and I am no longer helping.  She has the movers handled and does not need me.  I can slip away quietly into the night and leave them, as Jonsi said on her blog, like a dark cloud behind me, getting ever smaller and wispier.

When I sent the email summing up the visit out to all the sisters, I did do some passive-aggressive shit of my own, because *GRIN* why not?  I said that Bill had been there having lunch with mom, did he have any input??  Shouting to everyone the little secret they were trying to keep to themselves.  Cracks me up to think of that.  I also mentioned that mom had already had movers out there, and that my efforts were redundant and isn't she being so proactive?  I also mentioned that Mike had helped Georgia load a bunch of boxes of stuff into her truck.  Lol - I just threw light on everything, all the mold in the dark places.

There has been talk of everyone getting together for mom's 80th birthday in November, where can we all go, etc.  I am not going.  I've already told Anne.  It exhausts me to think of being in a room with some of them.  I'm no longer willing to make an effort to talk to the aquarium.  It bores me.  I'm just DONE.  Anybody who makes me feel *that* feeling of anxiety and stress?  not going to be around them.  Sure, there is the family association crap, but I have met other people who freak me out and I don't hang with them anymore - You get to pick.  you get to pick who is worth your time - and family doesn't automatically make the cut just because you've known them a long time.  YOU GET TO PICK.

And I am in the process of un-picking people.  Culled from my herd, as it were.

I did talk at length to Anne.  She is crazy too, yes, she is broken too - we all are.  But she has always been real with me, even when it isn't you know, pleasant.  Anyway, I told her that if I have ever EVER said anything asshole-ish to her, or her kids (because that is very possible as I have been very broken for a long time) that I AM SO SORRY.  Not one of those stupid apologies but seriously.  I do not want to lose people who DO speak my language, who ARE of the same species.  You know what she said?  this is huge.

(paraphrasing) "anything we said before we got mentally healthy in the last few years is bullshit.  We said it because we were taught to be assholes and be defensive and those were the only tools we had.  That stuff has to be forgiven and forgotten because it wasn't real.  We had to un-learn all that bullshit crap and learn how to be real, learn how to be human.  that's what matters."

I am so. very. healthy now.  And all the pieces are falling into place.