Enter the dragon..

[hippybngstockng]

Yep.. I'm irritated, and it's not really LJ's fault. I don't think there can be such a thing as blame anymore for this feeling, and someday, possibly someday real soon, I'd like it to stop.. It's that ever-fabulous wash of anger I get after having to talk to my mom about anything more serious than TV.

We talked on the phone last night and after the fourth time she set me off, while we were discussing the possibility of us moving back to Seattle sooner than later, I did have cause to remind her that if she ever expects to be exposed to me for longer than 4 days at a time that we're going to have to do some kind of therapy together because I cannot be the one to haul around all the after-effects. We can't be around each other alone for longer than a few hours (and K being there doesn't count, if anything it's worse if he's the only one around) without me eventually reaching a moment of needing to either run away, or start screaming at her at the top of my lungs. When someone else is there, her behaviour is only vaguely mitigated, and I still know what she'd be saying if no one was around in the back of my head, so yeah, IT DOESN'T COUNT. She can have all the arguments and stuff and be fine in another ten minutes, and I am left unable to stop being angry, and unable to function for days.

*sigh* You'd think I'd be old enough by now that I'd be over this shit, but alas, that's just not how it works.

ANYWAY... She repeatedly was trying to tell me that she needed to come up here and see us, and help us go through our stuff, and I was repeatedly trying to tell her as politely as possible that I'm just not in a space where I feel like that's a good idea. She cannot help me get through my things without enraging me, and she can't resist the urge to do so, and we don't have the space for her and her dog to visit at the moment, and yeah, I CANNOT AFFORD THE ANGER... And she just refuses to get it. I'm supposed to just suck it up and deal as usual, since it's just my weakness that makes me this way don't ya know.

*SCREAMS* *dies*

Let's add to this WHEN she says she MIGHT come- And let's be clear about this.. She's saying she MIGHT come up on the weekend OF MY BIRTHDAY... (insert tortured noises here)

She's currently waffling between taking the kiddo for a couple days so I can get a break, which is what I would WANT thank you very much, since it's my birthday and I could go out and get utterly smashed and not feel like it was a big deal to come home a raving plastered whacko... Heck, I could even have a party that I could invite GROWN UPS to, and have it go as late as the student parties next door, but do you think I'd want to have said party if my mom was in town? NO FUCKING WAY... I barely like introducing individuals to my mom, let's not even think about taking it to the community level.

So now, instead of having a clear idea of what I can and can't do on my birthday, I have either a chance to do much better than usual, or so incredibly worse it's not even funny, and I CAN'T ACTUALLY PLAN FOR ANY OF IT because it could all change at a moments notice.. Also, there's GUILT associated with the reasons for the non-information, a friend of the family is dealing with a family crisis, and may or may not be visiting my mom, hence the reason she may or may not need to be home that weekend.. SHE COULD JUST SAY SHE COULD TAKE THE KIDDO AND LET ME HAVE MY BIRTHDAY, but NO... It's much more fun this way, don't you think? So I can stay humiliated and isolated for the rest of my life? I thought so too.. Because clearly my mom's needs are primary in all things, and she wants to see us. *seethe*


In response to this, my temptation is to throw a party SOME OTHER TIME, and declare it now, and it will just be (X)party.. Insert whatever reasoning you want. I was tempted to make it limbo-themed, since I don't know at this point whether I should have a house warming or a house cooling, or a yard sale, but I HATE LIMBO and just about everything associated with it, and have nothing even remotely resembling a Hawaiian shirt. So, yes, PARTY.. We want to have one. We want people to come and have fun, and enjoy meeting us while we're here in hopes that we get to stay. I don't know when to have it, since I can already sense I am too late for anything real soon, and too early to sense that far into October. I also SUCK at party planning. So basically this is just me threatening into the wind at the moment, and if you're having a local party yourself sometime soon, please let me know so I can try to plan around it.

Totally off but slightly still on topic- Can anyone tell what's going on in my icon? I thought it was pretty obvious when I made it, but uniquecrash5 says he can't tell what it is. I think it's his eyesight, and the fact that we're still using an ancient video card.

Comments

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

My monitor is notoriously dark, but I can see a guy going under a flaming Limbo bar, and the text Limbo. I had to pay attention thought, it wasn't instant.

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

Ths is exactly what it is. :) I knew it was a little dark, and maybe a little hard to see, but I thought it could still be made out clearly if you stare at it.. I could make the text bolder and that might be a good thing. Not sure I should mess with the image any more though. It's hard to find a good picture of someone doing the limbo that comes across in 100X100 pixels. :P

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

How about now? I gave it a tetch more zoom-out as well as the yellow text..

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I can see it fine on my work PC; have to see how it'll work on the antique at home.

Also, sorry about your mom being such a headache. Actually kinda reminds me of the dysfunctional relationship I had with my batshit crazy Grandma (which impelled me to leave home at 17, before I was even out of high school). Although Grandma was more of a yeller than I've know your mom to be; what I remember from her were mostly irritating cutting comments, petulant criticism. Then again, I'm one of those other people around whom your mom presumably acts better than when it's just the two of you ...?

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

My mom yelled a lot when I was much younger, and then kinda slowed down as she got older. By the time I was a teenager, I was doing most of the yelling, since her message never changed, just came with fewer decibels and bigger words. It's your classic verbal abuse cycle, actually, where I became the abuser in the end as my means of getting away. I should have left like you did, but I was pretty beaten down, I didn't think I was capable of surviving on my own.

These days- You nailed it. She tries hard to dull it down by sticking to cracking jokes about how I suck, so that's what she gets back in return. It's still awfully dysfunctional even when we're getting along, really, since I think we each respect each other at the same time more than anyone else we know, we just can't show it or feel it, or believe it.

But yeah, for sure she is on her best around you, and just about everyone else I know, since she knows better than to talk shit about me to my friends, especially since I've become so fond of pointing out how usually it's directly related to some failing in her parenting skills.. ;)

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Make it the other kind of limbo, and have folks come as dead celebrities. Invite your mother.

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

I really like your theme idea, but not the inviting my mom part. She's got her own issues around party hosting, and so her natural response to being at mine is to become my own personal buzz kill. I know she probably doesn't mean it to happen like this, but it's like she can sense when I've gotten everything set up, and have finally decided to relax and enjoy my party, and then she swoops in with some bloated trauma that doesn't actually exist, like not being able to figure out where I keep my forks. She suddenly becomes incapable of being a grown-up, and just taking things into her own hands if she's not satisfied, even though she's known for some 35 odd years now that I trust her to make good decisions. I always beg her to please try to calm down and have fun, and so far I am still waiting to have a good party with her there where there isn't at least one moment where I want to put her in time out. I feel like my birthday is the one day I should really be allowed to just say no. I wish I had a mom that didn't bring up this response in me, since on many levels it makes me sad that I want to be away from her so badly on the day she brought me into the world, but there it is..

Mess with mom night.

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

No no no... you misunderstand me... Invite all your friends to trick out as dead people and TORTURE your mom with it.

Hi! My name is:
Marilyn

And play the role all night.

Everybody gather round and STARE at her when she starts up with something, and then have somebody pipe up with 'Hey, wait a minute, are you actually alive still?' and then everybody look at her again, like they are starving.

Re: Mess with mom night.

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

*sings* All we wanna do is eat your brains! We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes!

:)

Re: yer mom

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

Guilt. Guilt, and my need to be the bigger person in all things, plus possibly a little egotistical superiority. She actually knows, and can even somewhat admit I am right about our situation, but in that insincere way that people who are somewhat incapable of taking responsibility for their behaviour do. She actually did say she would go into therapy with me if I asked it, and I might just, and make her pay, if only to get the pleasure of witnessing a therapist try to make her understand. If they can't do it, then sure, that'd be pretty much it for me. I'd have to change my name and move far far awat to escape the wrath though, and then my MIL would likely rat us out, since they're really good buddies. Basically, it's complicated. Someday I'll write lots and lots about the gradual improvements I've seen so you don't think I'm completely insane to keep tolerating this nonsense. It amounts to knowing the secrets of how she came to be this way, and just feeling more sorry for her than anything else. She really does love me, she just can't show it in any way that doesn't also suck and hurt.

I understamd....

[(Anonymous)]

I myself have a dysfunctional relationship with my Dad. Sometimes I don't understand why I still talk to him... and other times I realize that it's because he's instilled SUCH a level of "must put up with blood relitives" that I deal with his crap.
I remember I skipped going with him and the rest of the family to the Bahamas for X-mas last year- because I just didn't want to be stuck on an island alone with my family with nothing to do but hear them tell me how f'd up I am. His current wife( his 3rd) is an echo chamber... him and her have a positive feedback loop about me where 90% of the time she agrees with him- but she sometimes PRETENDS to be a mediator...
I also had to explain to my mom while my older brother OFFERED to help me clean my apartment- at some point we would disagree, and I wasn't sure my brother would accept "MY APARTMENT, MY RULES"


Can you find another person to baby sit? I know you want all your friends at the party but if the kid could have a sleep over at someone ELSE's then you can bypass your mom and have a "back up"

And the picture is of a nakkid woman...
Oh I'm sorry had the wrong window open ;-)
it says "hot flaming limbo" with a limbo(er) limboing under a firey limbo stick.

Re: I understamd....

[lightning-rider.livejournal.com]

D'oh that was me....

Re: I understamd....

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do actually feel love for my mom on her good days, and when I think about her logically. She's not a complete vampire, just to me. She still remains convinced that I deeply NEED her as a mother or something, and can't resist the urge to look down on me as much as possible. I try to put up with it, but yeah, some days I'd really rather cut her loose and be free of it. Currently she's just being a bit resistant to my alternative offer to let her help me through email. She HATES using the computer for things that aren't work. I actually kind of require her help because she gave me a lot of the shit I now want to sell, and can't be sure about because it might be of the sacred family stuff. :P I told her it would take a bunch of the sting of the interaction out of me if we could just do it electronically, by numbers- I send her shit loads of numbered thumbnails of things and she can say ok to sell, or ok to give back so it can go to someone who gives a crap.

As for babysitting, if I can get it, great, if I don't, OH WELL, I'd still have a pretty big party, just try to mellow it out by showing movies and keep it as PG-13 as we can at least until he passes out. I'm a responsible enough control-freak adult that even at my most chemically fucked up, I'm still the likeliest one to be able to get You home safe, and tuck you in before I have to go throw up.. ;)

Oh... that fact.

[lightning-rider.livejournal.com]

Oh I forgot to mention that ;-)

Yeah, I know my dad "cares" for me and "loves" me in his own way. Which I guess is the reason I put up with him( though god knows I'd love not to put up with his wimmen folk 2nd and 3rd wives). It's just that like your mom he has weird ways of showing it.

I suggest that you tell your mom- if you don't help me... REALLY help me, I'm just gonna get rid of everything. I look back at it and smile when I remember my mom throwing out my dresser while I was away at college... the only stuff she saved was the "nice looking stuff that looked like it had never been worn"... because of course it was the stuff that she gave me that I thought was horrible.
;-)

Re: Oh... that fact.

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

*major giggling*

Ah yes.. I think I was about 12 when I finally told my mom she wasn't allowed to buy me clothing anymore without my being there to okay it. That woman was on a crusade or something to get me to wear pastel.

And yeah, she has said that ultimately it is up to me to decide, but then of course when she asks me what I am ditching and I tell her, she can't resist telling me that I should keep it, and then lists about 90 things I actually LIKE that she thinks I should get rid of, and why.. I'm betting that sounds familiar too! ;)

[cmariewt.livejournal.com]

Yes, someone is doing the limbo under a bar that is on fire.

There are three people on my f list seriously contemplating a move to Seattle. DO IT! I need somewhere to stay while I fall in love with the city too.