Why?

The day after I wrote the previous post, my sister relayed a conversation she’d had with our mother which was so unlike my conversation that it was like my own had never taken place.

Why does that have to happen?  My sister was hurt, and I don’t blame her, and it makes me angry and doubtful (again) that things are really going to change.

If your drinking has hurt one daughter, you can damn well bet it’s hurt the other daughter, so you are going to need to address that with BOTH of them.  Regardless of anything else – your drinking has hurt us both, mom, and you need to deal with THAT right now.  With both of us.  

Unexpected

Mom called me today.  I was in a meeting.  My sister had told me this morning that dad called to have my sister’s husband go over to the house to help pick my mom off the bathroom floor.  So that didn’t bode well.

But while I was in a meeting, she called and left a message, asking me to call her back.  I did, around half an hour later, when I was out of the meeting.  I was completely unprepared for the conversation.

I don’t even remember it all that well – it was so out of the blue.  but basically she said she’d seen a physical therapist that day and a social worker…and next week she was actually – if she can get an appointment that quickly – going back to see Dr. S. 

And – she had discussed her drinking with the social worker. 

This is big.  She was talking about the drinking as a problem. 

And she thanked me for my email the other day.  I wasn’t sure if she meant that or if it was sarcastic.  But I actually think she meant it.  I’m still puzzling over that one.  But…okay.

She also – this was new and different – said she was concerned about the effect her drinking has had on my sister and me.  Unheard of.

We talked.  It was strained.  It was strange.  I didn’t know what to think, how to respond.  I just was honest.  I didn’t cave.  I didn’t reassure.  But I don’t think I was mean or anything either.  I told her my sister and I don’t want her to crash.  But in the past, any time we’ve tried to show her that we recognize the warning signs, the red flags, she has shut us out.

She didn’t dispute that.  It was strange.  I emailed and then talked to my sister after.  We’re both cautiously optimistic, I guess.  Don’t want to get too excited – things have looked promising before.  But I have to say, some of the things my mother said were new – things she’s never said before.

I hope.  I am hesitant to.  But I hope.

Again so soon

I got an email from mom yesterday saying she was sorry for being a “loser” regarding Easter this year, and that she’d make it up to the kids.  There was some sort of grammatical error in there, which should have been a little red flag, but I didn’t notice it.  I was too busy being furious.  I emailed her back – this long tirade of the most recent pent up things and who knows what else…rage and frustration mainly.  I also sent all that to my sister, because that’s what we do.  We’re the kids. 

Well, a little while later, my sister called to tell me dad had called 911 on mom again – just then! – and she was pissed.  dad had called my sister first, and when she didn’t pick up, he called the house and spoke to my brother in law.  so no other details.

i spent the next 5 hours or whatever it is trying to focus on work, wondering if she’d read my email at all yet, sort of hoping she had, but now i’m thinking she hasn’t.  but whatever.

i also – as i always do during these episodes – spent time in “what if” land…what if she’s dead?  that’s pretty much the big one.  it’s exhausting, because when i do this “what if” thing, it’s not just a fleeting thought that passes through.  No, it digs its heels in and fans the flames.  I get tense, prepared for the worst, and just wonder.  Think of practical things – like who will watch the kids for me so i can go down and…what…view the body?  This is the kind of thing that happens.  In my head.  So yeah, i know it’s not REALLY happening…but that doesn’t mean that one day my “what if” won’t be right.

And she doesn’t understand any of this.  In her pickled mind, she’s going through EVERYTHING alone.  It doesn’t affect her kids, so why are they picking on her?

I just came home for lunch, and on the way, my sister called.  they’re back home – both of them.  apparently a social worker came and talked to her (mom) at the hospital – her file is a couple inches thick, and that’s just from the past few years – and they made her promise (HA!) to see her therapist – Dr. S. – who I think is fabulous because he sees right through her – and to go to another rehab out-patient thing that she was supposed to be going to one of the last times but of course developed a sore body part and couldn’t continue.

So – to laugh again – “they made her promise.”  Wow!  What a novel approach!  If only someone had MADE HER PROMISE something like this before!!!!!

And the beautiful part is that on the way home she made my father stop at a liquor store to get her a bottle of wine.

And he did.

He told my sister it’s because he’s dumb.  He’s not dumb.  I think he’s just plain tired. 

So I don’t know who I’m angrier at right this minute.  I think it’s a tie.

My sister said that he said – re the bottle of wine – “but i won’t do that again” – HA – right.  and my mother won’t drink again.

I don’t even know what to say next.  I wish I didn’t have to go back to work, though maybe the slight distraction will be good for me.

 I just feel like screaming for a while.  And swearing.  Lots of swearing.  Loud swearing.

But it won’t really do much good. 

This just sucks.  I’m so sick of this.  So tired of it.  Really.  Really?  Yes.  Really.

more of the same

my sister called me several times today.  she’d had to call our parents’ house and guess who answered the phone.  mom wanted to talk about the little routine medical procedure she’d had yesterday, but my sister refused to get into it.  the conversations that took place were less than satisfactory.

The thing about having conversations with mom sometimes – especially right after a binge – is that she is a genius at talking in all different directions and changing topics midstream and twisting what you just said so you have to waste time restating what you already said…or she’ll act like you were really discussing something else, and she’s puzzled as to why you’re back on that old topic (her drinking) again.  It’s dizzying.  It leaves you (me, my sister) feeling insane and frazzled and wondering if maybe mom actually isn’t the one with the problem after all.  The feeling doesn’t last – but it’s really hard to reconstruct the conversation in order to describe to someone else just WHY it was so frustrating.

my sister and i have both had many of these types of conversations.  And I don’t see an end in sight.

Alcoholics are manipulative creatures.  Magicians, really.  Distractors.  Look over THERE – don’t look at me while I have another drink.  All in the name of preserving access to the booze.  Nothing else – no matter what they say – matters more.  It sucks. 

Mom told my sister that the woman in the room with her at the hospital – an older woman – whose family visited her daily (unlike mom’s two horrid daughters who stayed far, far away) – this older woman – SHE has two bourbons every night.  Hm!  So, the logical next step would be, if SHE can do it (and having done it, has reached a fine old age with a loving family that doesn’t try to make her STOP having her two bourbons every night) then why can’t mom?  And of course, my sister pointed out that SOME people CAN do that.  But SOME people CAN’T.  And mom is one.  But mom doesn’t see the problem with whatever she’s drinking.  She also is barely conscious when she’s on a bender, so I’m sure she’s completely unaware of how hideous it is to see her like that.  For her, it’s probably a nap with a few odd dreams and dry heaves when she wakes up.  But doesn’t everyone have those?

And of course she also threw in some “can’t you tell me some of the good things I’ve done?” and so forth.  It’s a game.  It’s manipulative.  It’s an attempt to make us rush to list all the many wonderful things she’s done as our mother.

And don’t get me wrong – she did a lot of wonderful things.  However, that isn’t at issue.  She just doesn’t like what IS at issue, so she twists things around and tries to put my sister and me on the defensive.  Tries to make us make her feel better.

It’s old.  We used to fall for it.  We used to tell her what she wanted to hear.  But she doesn’t remember that.  It wouldn’t serve her if she could remember it.  She’d have nothing to throw at us. 

She’s also said stuff like “how come everybody else is allowed to have their ideosynchrasies and I’m not?!” – like her binges are just cute little personality quirks and we are blowing them all out of proportion.  Well, mom, sorry, but I don’t think your drinking problem qualifies as a mere ideosynchrasy. 

She hasn’t called me.  I haven’t called her.  I haven’t talked to my father either.  He won’t call.  She’s back in the house, sober, and in charge. 

I don’t know what to say to her any more.  I have plenty of things I can say – yes – but nothing I haven’t said before.  Again and again.  Same old stuff.  Same old waste of words. 

Tomorrow is Easter.  I will probably call and wish them happy easter.  Or put my kids on the phone and let them do it.  Or maybe not.  I don’t know.  I’m so sick of feeling guilted into doing stuff.  I should call – they’re my parents.  But how come there’s never a reciprocal “I shouldn’t go on a binge – they’re my children” from her? 

I know it’s an illness.  I know.  But it’s also a choice.  A choice to do something, or a choice not to.  She has made her choice.  Again and again and again. 

memory

my mother took classes when we were young.  i think it was her chance to get out of the house one night a week.  dad had bowling night.  i think that was wednesdays.  she took ceramics…decoupage…needlepoint…

i liked ceramics the best of her classes.  it wasn’t actual pottery classes – they painted the greenware and the teacher brought it somewhere to fire, and then bingo, christmas gifts.  she painted ceramic christmas trees for our household and for her parents – the kind with little plastic lights that sit in little holes on the branches, and the whole thing is lit from within by a lightbulb. 

she’d bring home little greenware animals for my sister and me to work on.  it wasn’t just painting – we’d have to carefully smoothe down the seam that ran down the center of the molded piece…then figure out what color to paint it.  i did a bright yellow goat and painted the bell around its neck a sloppy green that spilled over onto the baby goat’s little chest.  my sister did a tiny skunk that she first painted black and then painted green. 

my mother did pretty work.  i have a small goose stretching its neck high – it’s graceful and the eyes were painted with a careful hand.  and a small pudgy duck to keep the goose company.  and my aladdin’s lamp.  for some reason when i was little, i wanted to be aladdin.  not ”jeannie” with the harem costume – but aladdin.  i was a tomboy.  my aladdin lamp is brown with black - swirly lines and lamp details.  it’s upstairs on my bureau.  there are also a rooster and a hen that perch on top of one of the dining room hutches at my parents’ current home.  and toads and frogs.  ashtrays, back when more people smoked…all kinds of things.  

when we got older and college loomed on the horizon, she went back to work.  no more time for ceramics classes…i think it’s too bad that she didn’t make the time for something for herself.  i remember that time – the time of ceramics and bowling and mom at home and endless summers – maybe there was more going on that i just wasn’t aware of.  i was a child then.  things were far less complicated.   

last night

i couldn’t sleep for the longest time last night.  conversations in my head.  it’s always like this.  not just the conversations, but the imagining. 

i don’t know how many times i have imagined being told that she has died.  and no, amazingly, it hasn’t happened yet.  but still.  whenever she goes on a bender, i mentally prepare for the worst.   it’s exhausting.  it’s not exactly the same as actually losing a parent, but it almost seems worse – i have gone through this so many times, and cried, and grieved, that i wonder if i’ll have any tears left when the real time comes.

last night – or was it this morning – i also had practical thoughts – bring a spare house key with me to work so that when (not if – when) i called someone to pick up the kids for me and bring them home, i could give them the key and not have to take my own off the keyring.  i could leave the car seats and the key at the daycare.  yes, that would work.  practical.  taking care of the important things.  my children. 

but no call came, and as i wrote in my first post, she is actually home. 

dad had said something about trying to get her into a rehab program…possibly one out of state if necessary.  and i told him that if she isn’t going to put 100% effort into this…if she isn’t willing to work like hell to never ever have another drop of alcohol again, then it’s not worth whatever money they’d spend on her 30 days of on-site therapy.  and she’s gone through it before.  years ago.  right after my sister’s wedding, actually.  put in the 30 days, the wall around her never came down, she never saw that she was no different from anyone else there, and though they gave her a “i am responsible” tag for her keys, she didn’t really graduate.  it was just that the medical coverage had run out.  time’s up.  everybody out of the pool. 

i am wondering what sparked this most recent episode.  that’s one of the ways we entertain ourselves, i guess – my sister and me.  we speculate on what triggered it.  or – we’ll speculate on what will trigger the next one.  sounds heartless and cruel or something, maybe.  but it’s a coping mechanism.  it’s survival.  it’s humor where there is too much ugliness and sadness.  i thank god every day i have my sister.  actually, to be honest, i have to thank my parents for that. 

what just happened

most recently…she went on another bender and ended up in the hospital.  dad called 911.  he couldn’t deal with it any more.  she was losing control of her bladder all over the place.  didn’t even care.  just wanted more wine.  she was pissed that they took her to the hospital.  pissed that she was there.  the oxygen they put her on cleared her head enough so she snarled at the doctor “i want to get out of here, i just want to go home, and drink my wine, and go to sleep.”  yeah, you don’t have a problem, do you.  at some other point during all of this, the doctor – her new doctor – told her she has to stop drinking or she’s going to die.  and she apparently said something like “maybe that would be best” or “maybe I should” or something like that.  and you know, at one time in my life i would have felt overwhelmed with sadness about that.  I would have tried to find just the right words to say to make her not feel like that.  I would have tried – and I would have failed.

and I did fail – many many many times over the years.  slow learner, i guess.  or optimistic.  or naive.  whatever.  i never said or did just that right thing to make her stop.  it took me years, but i finally realized that i don’t have the right words to say.  it’s like glinda tells the scarecrow about dorothy understanding how to get home – “…because she wouldn’t have believed me…she had to learn it for herself.”  that’s what it boils down to.  she has to learn it for herself.  more than that, she has to want it.  and over and over again she mostly wants booze.

today

i figure she’s home.  because dad hasn’t called either one of us, my sister or me.  when she’s home, he stays away from the phone.  she sent an email, though.  informing a slew of family and friends that she would be having a medical procedure on friday.  my sister called it – it’s a “quick – look over there” kind of tactic.  Avoidance is everything.