Last night, Mum decided to randomly show up at my new place. No phone call, I just got word from my housemate that I had a visitor, and there she was just standing in the living room, shouting "Surprise!" in a way that sounded angry instead of playful. She was clearly in one of her "I'm unhappy with my life and need someone to bitch at with no repercussions" moods, and I was all that was nearby. We talked for some 15 minutes or so, she throwing little hurtful barbs into every other sentence, and me ignoring them. Eventually, she started complaining about how hard her life had been lately; she had to drive for 20 minutes to do an errand today. I tried to talk with her about my aspirations with the contract graphics and game design business. She took the opportunity to ask why I couldn't just "go get a real job," told me that she had no confidence in me whatsoever, and wanted to let me know that I was a disappointment. I told her that I loved her, but I needed her to leave, and I showed her out.
Today, she called me to complain about how no one in her life cares about her. Clearly I don't. Her parents don't. Even her husband doesn't, despite the fact that he works 60+ hour weeks, busts his ass to cook, clean up after, and provide for her, and generally enables her to lay on a couch, watch TV, sleep, and read shitty fiction novels all day, every day. And he suffers through and forgives her when she complains any time he asks her to do little things around the house, like emptying the dishwasher, or watering the garden. Anything that she can't do while sitting on a damned couch, she'll bitch about. I explained that her husband does a lot for her, and doesn't expect much in return. That she should show him more appreciation. She tries to turn this around and asks me, in as snide a voice she can muster "Oh, and you don't have anyone you should be thankful for?" In the past, I would have played along and answered the question, but it's nonsense rhetoric; an attempt to shift focus away from her and her behavior, and toward someone else. I've lived with her for years; I know her methods, and I do not have the steely stoicism to deal with them that I used to. She tried to go on the offensive and tear into my goals and aspirations again, and I told her I needed to go, and hung up.
I'm tired of this. She's family, and I love her... but this comes from a woman who denied me a warm room to sleep in when I was desperate for work and staring homelessness in the face. Who drank, slept, and sat her way through the last 15 years. Whose asshole boyfriends abused her own children, which she happily denied if it meant they still got to get high and have sex together. When I was a kid, my pocket money covered her vices. I learned to drive because she got into so many accidents while I was in the car with her that I can barely stand to be a passenger anymore. I spent a night in a Police Office because she was caught in possession while driving me home from a Jr. Honor Society meeting. I had to talk stop her from getting physically violent toward my siblings more times than I care to remember... and 10-year-olds should not be teaching their mothers that violence isn't the way to solve an argument. I help maintain her house, comfort her when she's having a hard time, and take care of her aging parents for her. When I talk to her these days, half the time I get nothing but abuse from her; the other half of the time I have to talk her down from being stupidly self-destructive (because she needs attention), or coach her on basic social graces (she lives such a cloistered life, that she's forgotten how to deal with other people).
The woman has no concept of work, nor of the kindness and forgiveness people keep showing her... but she'll keep on taking that kindness for herself, and offering the world nothing but spite and bile in exchange. I can't be the emotional punching bag I was for her as a child, and I don't have the energy to deal with her as she keeps trying to tear me down. If she keeps abusing the kindness and care that people show her, she is going to end up very desperate, and very alone.
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Topic: Things that made you RRRRRRAAAAGGGGEEEE today: Trust-o-nomics Edition (Read 3766060 times)