I am only child, so for my entire life my mother had to play favorites with people who didn't live in our family, just to remind me of how she feels about me.  It could be a stranger or someone I was being hurt by at school or elsewhere (I'd tell her of an argument I had with someone and she'd always take their side, still does).  As I got older and became an adult, and she got a crew of friends, she'd rotate favorites between us, making each of us (there were four) her scapegoats and her golden children.  It was, and is, exhausting.  

But there was always one person who was always her golden child, and that is my husband.  She loves him so very much and treats him like how a parent should treat a child (well, as close as she can figure out how to be one, anyways).  The other day he took a nap because he had a horrid migraine (we both get icky migraines and we both take naps, mind you) and she was all over him after he got up and said "Oh my god, how do you feel?  I feel so bad you don't feel well like that!"   My husband looked at me when she looked away and made a face.  He knows she's ridiculous.  And it makes him so uncomfortable because her concern sounds faker than a $7 bill.  And because she shows zero interest in my sickness or pain. 

But then I'm walking around Menards yesterday and bang, my head started pounding.  I hadn't had a migraine like that in a long time.  Then, like usual, my brain started getting loopy, and I couldn't think straight.  At least I didn't get dizzy, thank goodness (which is a usual symptom of mine, as is the others).  We left, had to still go to another store, then came home and by then it was horrid.  We walked in and our dogs were all barking like maniacs.  I was angry a bit, telling them to shush because they were making my horrible migraine 100x more horrible.  And my mother started making this noise.  Now, let me tell you, my mother LOVES to make noise.  She's honestly worse than a toddler or even my little yappy dogs when it comes to noise making.  She will do all sorts of strange and really irritating voices that only she finds funny or cute.  And she's like a child in the way that she picks a noise or a saying and beats it like a dead horse until there's nothing left to that horse except pulp and you can't tell if it was ever a horse to begin with.  A child wears things out.  My mother?  She obliterates it.  So she loves to make this noise where she shakes her face back and forth and her tongue slaps her lips.  I have no way else to describe it.  And she does it louder than the damn dogs barking.  

So I say "Ma, please stop, I have a pounding migraine".  And if she saw my face, she'd see I was in distress.  She'd have seen the discomfort on my face, as I felt freaking horrible.  So rather than saying "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!  Here, let me take your bags for you so you can sit down!" like she would have for my husband.  But no, she does what someone who doesn't give a rat's ass would do and she makes the noise again.  LOUDER.  I yelled at her that time.  I said "STOP IT!  My head freaking hurts!"  So, she does it AGAIN.  "DAMMIT MA!  Nobody finds that sound funny or cute!  Don't make that sound EVER AGAIN!"  So she took her cup of coffee and went outside and stayed there for hours and didn't speak to me again until later.  

I hate yelling at anyone.  I really do.  It gives me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.  But she puts me in the position to have to do it.  Otherwise she won't stop what she's doing to hurt me.  Like when she used to think it was cute to be like Gibbs on NCIS and slap people on the back of the head (though Gibbs only did it to Dinozzo, ma did it to everyone).  She did to me and my oldest son (her scapegoats) and would pretend to do it my husband and our youngest (her favorites).  Then one day we were in the car and she did to me with a horrible migraine (she loves to hurt me when I'm already hurting) and I was soooo sick of that crap already and I said "Don't do that.  Nobody likes that and my head hurts".  So she hit me again.  I ducked again and said a little louder "Stop it."  So she actually got me the third time and I grabbed her arm pretty hard and held in the air and yelled "Don't you ever hit anyone ever again!  This isn't TV!  It's never okay to hit people!" and let her arm go.  She never did it again (though she did catch herself a couple times before completely quitting).  

Though, the other day, she was doing one of her "voices" (this really nasal and high-pitched voice she does) and both my husband and I told her to stop and he even said he had a big of a headache and she still didn't stop until, again, I had to raise my voice at her.  BUT, I was the one who first told her to stop.  When my husband joined in, she was already annoyed with me for telling her to quit.  But had my hubby asked her first, she may have quit...but I have no idea, as he never is the first one to tell her to stop (it makes him uncomfortable, which I totally get).  

So then at dinner, my migraine was finally gone.  So I brought it up to her at the table.  I said "Thank god for tylenol!  I had such a horrible migraine earlier I'm lucky that tylenol worked for it this time.  It was pretty painful, too."  And she just brushed me off and talked to someone else.  Though at dinner the day before was she was gushing over my husband, about how she was glad his head felt better and all that.  But when I'm in pain, all she wants to know from me if I'm going to make dinner or not. 

My therapist said to me to stop thinking of her as your mother.  Just think of her as an old woman you take care of who has a thing for your husband (which sounds gross, but he didn't mean it as romantic, though with my mother, you never know LOL).  That's easier said than done, because it really bothers me.  And I think I'm going to bring it up to her, and point it out.  I'm going to say "Wow, you sure care about when he's in pain, but when I am, you say absolutely nothing at all."  

There's a thousand different ways she shows me she loves him like a son and thinks I'm the help.  She gushes to others about his accomplishments, but never says a word about me (even though some of our accomplishments are exactly the same).  Or she gets on my case if he does too much outside or around the house (she went on a 10 minute speech the other day because she saw him doing dishes).  We cleaned the garage out the other day (after some drama she pulled on us about it--even though SHE was the one who made the mess LOL) and because she saw me cleaning she said nothing about it.  But when he does something, or anything at all, she's all proud of him in ways I've never heard her talk about me. 

It's all fake, mind you.  Even when she praises me or our kids.  None of it is real.  We all can tell because her tone is always off and overdramatic.  So I don't know why I'm jealous of fake praise or fake concern.  But it just wears on you.  Especially when I do shit for her every single day.  Especially when I'm in horrible amounts of pain and she gets off on trying to make it worse but would never do that to her favorites.  It makes me feel singled out.  It makes me feel like nothing I do is good enough because even though I try my best to do what she wants, she still wants to hurt me.

Then again, it also gives me a freedom  that everyone else doesn't have.  I can say what I want to her.  I can stop trying to be polite when I need to be stern with her.  Because I know nothing I do is good enough, I don't even have to try if I don't feel like it.  Because I know that even if I tell her knock something off, she'll treat me exactly the same if I'm polite and say nothing while she tortures people.  So I can say things the others can't.  I don't have to worry about losing her love or affection, as I don't have it.  This gives me the freedom to little by little, say the things I've always wanted to say and to stop taking her shit when I don't have to.  So when I look at it that way, I don't feel so bad.  

It doesn't fix everything, but it does make it somewhat better.  And right now my hubby is taking her grocery shopping, so I can just relax without anyone making strange voices or noises in the house.  Well, besides the dogs ;)