My estrangement email. It always comes to this, doesn't it?

**So, I sent an email to Georgia (at the bottom) explaining one facet of why I was so upset after my visit.  Scroll down and read that one first.  Then this is the rest of the story**

Dear 3 sisters:

I am sending you the below email I sent to Georgia, just so you are all clear on part of what I was so screaming angry about after my visit with mom.  I am not sending this email to Georgia and Leslie - for obvious reasons.  This email is not a secret.  But I am not out to hurt feelings. 

(The 'obvious reason' wasn't so clear.  I didn't want to add to the burden of anyone who was trying to repair their relationship with my mom.  There was no reason to hand someone a steaming plate of my angst when they are dealing with their own.  I didn't want to put anyone in the position of feeling the need to defend my mom - that is not constructive.  I was not keeping secrets.  I clarified this with the sisters after I sent this email.)

Regarding my visit:

Aside from trapping Mike and attacking him about his weight (see below email), she also got in my face (very much in my personal space) and began mocking me after she asked me a random question about why I was so tan - I had hesitated in my answer (thinking 'wtf is she going for here, it's summer, I'm not that tan, this is a trap, wha...') and she got very close to my face, staring intently into my eyes, saying "urm um hmm um" <--as if that was what I was saying out loud, because I was hesitating.  Hard to explain.  She was just - well, mean and hard looking, hoping for some response - embarrassment?  This is not normal social behavior.  Made all the more weird because she is so nice right before and right after one of these incidents - like always.  Mike was also a close-up witness to that attack, and was as stunned as I was.  She is vicious in a hundred little ways.  She has done this exact thing before, this is not new.

I've had some time to process this last visit (it always takes me some time to process visits with her.  Since childhood I shut down and disassociate while I'm in her presence, and I think that is a huge deal as well), and these two examples are only two out of a dozen or so that happened in those two days I saw her.  These things happen EVERY TIME I see her.  This is exactly the way she has treated Alexis and Anne, and Jude I'm assuming this has happened to you as well.

My epiphany is that I am not willing to spend any more of my time around a snake that bites me every time I'm near it.  I think it's awful that it took me so long to just be done trying to pet a snake. Being old doesn't preclude her from being polite.  Just because I have known her for 46 years doesn't imply that we have any kind of relationship.  She has done this sort of thing to me since I was 6-years old.  There is no excuse for this behavior, and no excuse for why I have allowed this person in my life for so long.

I have long assumed it was something I could control.  If I just tried harder - if I wasn't so weird, so on the outside - you know, if I just changed it would be better.  But I realized last week that this has nothing to do with ME.  She is just a mean, vicious person.  She always has been, this is NOT new behavior.  I have never been so mentally healthy and centered, and this happened anyway.  The fact that I am now done with her is proof (to me) that I am mentally healthier - I'm aware that she is poison and I am not willing to expose myself to that poison anymore.  The fact that it only took me 24-hours to process this visit is a very big deal to me. 

I am done with her.  But I WILL NOT LOSE YOU THREE.  I will not allow her to come between the relationship I have with my sisters.  There will be no big declaration - there was no fight.  It was just another little straw, like all the other little straws before it.  The camel's back has been broken.  She would likely be surprised at all of this fuss from me - there was no indication at the time that her actions had any affect at all.  (because it takes me time to process her).  The catalyst for my decision is that she is beginning to corner and slyly attack my son.  and, NO.  just no.  No more.  The cycle will not continue.  I'm done.

Perhaps your particular perspective is different.  Maybe you feel your relationship with her is worth more of your time.  I respect your decision.  Please respect mine.  I am not leaving in a huff.  This has been coming for 46 years.  She has made her bed with me, time and again.  I do not forgive her for the abuses she inflicted on me as a child, and I will not condone her behavior now.

Mike is still going to help her move - he will drive the U-Haul - he is a grown man and my relationship with mom is not HIS.  He and I are not in the same place with regards to this crap.  And rightly so.  He believes so strongly in FAMILY that he will do this gladly, to help out.  He is in communication with mom on his own, and will communicate with all the sisters when there is a time and date for moving.  Judith, he may need a place to stay overnight after the move, and I'm going to have him talk to you about crashing on your floor, hope that's fine.

I don't want to make a huge deal out of this.  I'm not going to boycott family gatherings if she is there.  I will however, choose when and where and if I am around her again.  I have reached max capacity for her particular brand of bullshit.  I just wanted you three to know. 

Casey

******************************************************
From: Casey
To: Georgia
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 7:47 AM
Subject: Re: Visit with Mom this week

Thanks for not mentioning my second (screaming stressed out) email.

 

I had fun seeing you guys.  Mom drives me crazy, but that happens to all of us.  At one point she cornered Mike and was insistent about asking him about his weight - her opinion being that he is too fat.  I turned into a mama bear and lost my mind after the visit.  She can be very cruel and cutting.  He doesn't understand her obsessions about being thin and her comments really hurt his feelings - especially since he was there working so hard to help her.  So I was a bit uh, ticked off.

 

Anywhozle, love to all y'all there.  (and etc, other closing remarks)

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.

Estrangement from my mother *Part 1*

So, I went up to OC to visit with family, Mike went too - that's where we left off.  First of all, nothing BAD happened.  Like, there was no big blow-out, no fighting.

The straw that broke the camel's back was just another little straw, right?  One more, same as the rest, not unusual, just another straw. 

The Last Straw.

(I don't really want to tell the story in chronological order - it really is a series of vignettes that can be told in bullet format.  It’s a long and winding road of a post, so don’t feel bad if you don’t want to read it all.  TL:DR – I decided to estrange myself from any family members who make me dizzy when I talk to them.  I’m very happy about this decision.)

-->Before we begin, I would like to tell you THIS:  I got home from the weekend and composed a very nice email to all sisters, telling them about mom's progress on the house and what Mike and I accomplished and blah blah, hit send.  Then I wrote an email to ONE sister, saying 'the family is all fucking nuts, I'll call you later'.  Hit send.  YEAH, I sent that one to all sisters too.  I DROPPED THE CAKE AGAIN.  Be careful of your 'too' line, is all I'm sayin'.  At least it said the entire family was fucking nuts, not just one sister, so, I was saved from COMPLETE assholery.  I'm only an incomplete asshole.<--

My mother's narcissistic behavior finally killed our relationship.

Scene 1:  We're all waking around at the beach, cruising the shops and talking.  Georgia (the next oldest from me, re-writing history, remember?) starts in on Mike about college - how it's SO important, it's the only way to get a career, SUPER IMPORTANT (Mike is going to college on the GI bill, but is not certain that is the route he wants to take.  I am not a big proponent of college, I am not against college - there are many roads to success, and success is not defined by a corner office, cars, clothes, or debt - but to each their own etc.)  Anyway, Mike was getting pissed and rightly so, I had to step in, I think Georgia was worried about her kid who is 13 and didn't want her to hear any 'not college is great!' stuff, but seriously.  I don't care what the subject is, you are beating a dead horse.  This is not the first sister who PREACHES COLLEGE and we are well and truly sick of it - all the nieces and nephews get the 'are you going to go to school?' judgmental question every conversation with any aunt (except ME because I am perfect, don'tchaknow).

2:  Georgia was talking at lunch about how the day before, she was at mom's house and some Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on the door.  Georgia and mom INVITED THEM IN THE HOUSE and talked with them for a couple hours.

• Just because someone SAYS they are from a religious group, doesn't mean that they are.  My mom lives alone and is 80 years old.  These people could have been scoping the place out (laughable if you knew what mom has, who would want it, but still) Murder, Mayhem, Etc - really? 
• 2 HOURS when mom has done essentially NOTHING to pack and move, she has a month to sort through 45 years of accumulated dusty crap and you take 2 hours to talk with strangers? 
• In the little piles of crap that pass for ‘sorted’ in that house are some religious books, like the bible but more with holy scriptures and passages and feel-good sentiments.  In the TOSS pile was a number of vintage books with tags from my real mother Kaye, or which had the signature of mom’s first husband (and therefore the real father of Leslie and Georgia) – things that might be valuable to someone.  She threw that stuff away and kept these random religious books that were not even hers from childhood I think? 

3.  Georgia pointed to a banana seat Schwinn bike in a vintage store and said 'remember our bikes?!' - first of all - the one she pointed to was a boys bike, the one with the cool shifter on the horizontal bar, and hand brakes.  I was the only one who had one of those banana seat bikes, obv mine was a girls bike, etc.  I dunno, maybe she thought she had lived with Greg Brady at some point.  I get it, the bike was evocative of the era in which we lived, but by the time I got MY bike, all the older sisters were DONE with bike riding.  I got my bike in 1969, Xmas - (oh ho ho!  I have the photo albums!)

The rest of any bikes that may have been purchased in previous years would have been early 60’s models, not the coolness that was MY bike.  She is rewriting history and Whoops.  I have found a picture of Georgia on the same type of bike, hers is red.  So, it was the two of us that had the same bike - I probably wanted one just like hers, actually.  But she does want to change our childhood into something it wasn't and that makes me tilt my head to the side like that dog in the RCA ads.

wha da fuq you sayin?

 

4.  One of my nieces who was there visiting had no clue that I was full blood sister to her mother - she thought my mom, who is our step-mother (except for Georgia and Leslie) was my blood mother.  Not that I am all AHHH!  TAINTED BLOOD!!  which, you know, kinda - but it tells me that things are not being told correctly, the truth is shrouded - it's all so weird.  (This nieces mother is one of my blood sisters.  It's like the Brady Bunch, 4 sisters are dad's, vs. 2 sisters are step-monster's).  Also this makes me feel more like I am on the outside, which I have been since the day I was born. 

~So that is the first day.  All of those were just little straws, and it took me until later that night to process all of this.  I was in the hotel room with Mike and I had this AH HA moment:

My mom is like a fish in a big aquarium to me.  I go to , and I have kept trying to talk to the fish - there is no way to get my voice heard through the glass, she doesn't understand me, they just keep swimming.  ALL OF MY LIFE I have been trying to communicate with a different species.  It isn't my fault that I can't get them to understand me, and that I can't understand them.  THEY ARE A DIFFERENT SPECIES THAN I AM.  It is impossible for us to understand each other or to communicate.  It isn't ME.  No matter how hard I try to be understanding, or gentle, or listen - I am never going to make any headway.  I have always thought it was because I was so weird, so crazy – there must be some logical reason I am on the outside, right?  So I gave up that night, I gave myself permission to give up!  And I knew it was the right decision because I felt so LIGHT and my hair was tingling and I was joyous.  I GAVE UP.  No more trying to talk to people who do not in any way speak my language.  Or any language close to it.  They are fish, I am human, there is no understanding a tuna.  Or a smelt.  And IT ISN’T ME. 

So that was my first apostrophe epiphany.

 (TW – this part of my apostrophe is for you): They all contributed to my being forced to the outside, at first it was modeled for them by the parents, and then later years up TO NOW EVEN they just continue to do it, to see what they want to see.  It is easier for them to keep me in that box even when faced with fact and irrefutable evidence.  To that I say whatever!  I AM FREE it feels so good to just wash my hands of them!

 

*there is more, this will need to be a 2-parter because the dogs have to pee*