and I walked out $143 poorer and now I have no money until next week.  Sigh.  

All of the resale shops in our town have QUADRUPLED in their pricing, so whereas shirts used to be $2, now are $8.  Eight.  Fucking.  Dollars.  For.  A.  Jenky.  Ass.  Used.  Shirt.  Why????  I'm going to have to start some swaps in town instead because this is ridiculous.  Anyways, Mother REFUSED to try on any of the clothing, even though they were $8 a piece, and that royally pissed me off.  I just let it go though, because she never gets to go anywhere, and nobody else in town has any different prices.  So what was I going to do?  I got one two books, a sweater, and two items to make journals with.  My husband got three books, a sweater, and a $20 guitar amp, which worked great.  All of the rest of the money was HERS.  Holy batballs that was one expensive trip.  But that is the LAST place we are going for a long time.  Because she doesn't even have the ability to think anymore "Hey, maybe this is too much?"  She just grabs and shoves it into her cart.  She didn't even find any pants (though I wouldn't have paid for them had she found them without trying them on first), which is what she went there for in the first place.  

I am not complaining we had to take her shopping.  I am complaining about the fucking prices of resale items.  WHY?  I thought it was safe to take her there so she wouldn't spend too much money.  Poor people shop there because they cannot afford the regular stores.  And now poor people can't even afford to shop any of them in my town anymore.  This is bullshit.  I want to open my own.  

So, two days ago we had to take her to a doctor's appointment.  I never go with her anymore, as I did it for years and all it does it give me horrible anxiety and stress.  But she had to go during the day (it was an emergency-ish situation) while my hubby was at work, so we took her.  She ended up being fine, but it was nice to have her act normal and nice to me.  She was normal and nice yesterday, too.  But man, can you really tell her dementia has gotten worse.  I mean, I knew it had, but this is so much worse than I realized.  She'd say something to me, I'd comment, and she'd have no idea what I was talking about.  Also, she knew I had chairs in the garage, so when we got home yesterday, I pulled one out to get for her in her room to read in.  Today, she talked about how I have to go back to the store to buy another chair.  I would think she was kidding around, but she elaborated, talking about the Salvation Army.  Everything confuses her anymore.  She's really losing it.  

Well, that's been my week so far.  We've been harvesting and processing black walnuts the past week, too.  We'll be getting more this week, or maybe more later today.  Also, we moved out of our storage unit, because it was too expensive.  Hopefully a new one that's cheaper will be open soon.  

That's it for now.  

He was my little guy.  As he grew up, we grew apart, but I remember the little boy he once was and how silly and fun and sweet he was.  Hyper as hell!  He was also so freaking funny.  But he didn't die.  But the boy I once knew is gone.  I had wondered why he hadn't participated in family gatherings for so long.  Now I know: he was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic.  To the point that he's moved away from everyone and lives his own life, in his own misery and mysterious rantings on social media.  I tried to reach out to him a few years ago.  But something seemed off.  I had no idea what was going on.  And now I do.  And it breaks my fucking heart.  

I hate his mother.  It's safe to say that "hate" is the correct word here.  She's one of the worst narcissists I've ever met.  And she's the reason my family stopped talking to me (though I'm glad that happened).  But no mother deserves that.  No mother deserves both her first born and her last born (she has three children) to be so mentally ill that they may die before her.  Her youngest is bipolar with horrible suicidal ideation and now her oldest hears voices that tell him to jump off of "the highest place he can find".  I know she must be a horrible mom, as what narcissist mother isn't?  I think she may have gave up on her oldest, as she seems to have nothing to do with him and hasn't for years.  But still. 

But most of all, he deserves better.  See, my aunt, my cousin's mother's mother, is both bipolar and paranoid schizophrenic.  And she passed it down to two of her grandkids, both who are siblings.  And her grandson, the man I am talking about here, also inherited his mother's father's Type 1 diabetes in childhood.  That kid has had nothing but bullshit his entire life.  I want to take him and his sister and just hug them both until they feel loved and cared for and until my love fixes them.  I know that's not something that would help.  But still.  If I had a superpower, that's what I'd pick.  I'd hug the fuck out of people until they felt loved and it cured their depression and other mental illnesses and physical illnesses.  I wish love could do that.  I wish love could cure everything.  I wish my love could cure everything.  If so, I'd spend my entire life giving it out every second of the day.  I already meditate on that on most days.  So much so I have to detach myself from it all otherwise I feel too damn much and it overwhelms and overpowers me, which can lead me into a feeling of horrible dread and anxiety (if I were a superhero, maybe my life could cure my mental illnesses, too?).

I have two kids, and they both inherited my and my ex's ASD, and my birthfather has paranoid personality disorder and I had no idea until a few years ago who he even was.  I can only hope I didn't pass that down to my kids from him.  But at least they don't hear voices that tell them to kill themselves.  Fuck.  I wish there was a cure for that shit.  They have recently figured out how to program cells to keep them from aging (trippy, I know!), so maybe they can figure this out, too?  I hope so.  

But until then, I am finding a way to come to terms with the loss of ever being able to have a relationship with him again (I've tried, he's very reclusive).  I had this stupid idea that he and I and my oldest cousin were all scapegoats and we'd one day band together and be our own little family or at least write to each other and whatnot.  But now I know that will never happen.  

I think I may contact his father to see if anyone is keeping tabs on him and getting him help.  

And even though our oldest cousin doesn't respond to me, I still still send him birthday cards.  I know he's in the same boat as me (to a point).  So I don't want him to ever think that he's totally forgotten about in this family, even though I have been (which is fine by me LOL).  Speaking of that, I need to go buy him one today.  I can't fix what's gone wrong with my family, but I can let the ones who deserve it know I am thinking of them.  You only live once, right?  So all I can do is try.  

I won't give up on my cousin's son, either.  I will do whatever I can to make sure someone is looking in on him and helping him.  

I just wish I'd known about this before now.  It's so freaking heartbreaking.  I remember when she found out she was pregnant with him.  I remember him as a baby and as a little boy who once ran into a woman's bent over ass, face first, running away from me laughing like a manic in a store.  It was the funniest day ever.  It's not fair the way our brains break apart sometimes.  It's not fair that we don't get to know this about ourselves ahead of time.  I am so sorry J.  I wish I could heal you <3 

Going through boxes of pictures to save from our flooded basement and I found a stack of pics of mother's "new family", the ones she replaced me, my husband, and my kids with when we went no contact with her for fourteen months in 2017-2018.  She even bragged to me all about them, about her "new daughter" and "new grandkids" after I (reluctantly) came back into her life in 2018.  She HATED this woman up until then.  It was all just a game to her.  Everything.  Since my adoption in 1979.  Since her birth.  Life is nothing more than a fucking gam to her to win or lose.  That's it.  There is no in between. 

This woman is her old friend's daughter.  Her friend had passed away while I was no contact with my mother (actually two of her friends from her posse had passed away during that time) and since I was no contact with her, she connected with this friend's daughter, who happened to be married to a drug dealer (part of the reason why she hated her).  The woman also has four children, who she lost custody of, all four to different people (foster parents) due to neglect and abandonment.  But there my mother was, putting all their pics on her fridge of this woman and her random children as though they were one big happy family (never mind that the woman left town shortly after I came back, abandoning her kids, once again).  The funny part was that when we moved, I took the woman's phone number, which was proudly posted on my mother's bulletin board and changed one of the numbers on it to a different number, and when my mother tried to call her, she always got the wrong number.  And the woman never called my mother again, so it worked out quite well.  

I'm not even angry my mother kept the pictures, as she still was talking to her when we moved and those pics have been in our basement since 2020.  I guarantee you she 100% doesn't even remember she still has them.  It's just a shitty reminder of how easily I was replaced and how I never meant anything to her, I was just an object for her to use and abuse, and I still am.  The difference now though is that I am aware of it and I don't care anymore.  She's not my mother, she's the old woman I take care of.  I have a job to do and so I do it.  The pictures are of another life I once had.  One where I had a mother that replaced me when I walked away from her.  And that's okay.  I wasn't coming back, so why not?  That woman in the pictures is so broken from her own abuse and narcissistic DNA running through her veins that she lost custody of 4 out of 5 kids (the 5th she ran to another state to give birth to so they didn't take that one away).  So I don't even really hate her.  I just hate that she replaced her mother with my mother and my mother replaced me with her.  But they are two very broken women who have no sense of anything, really.  It's sad, when I really think about it.  My simple-minded mother felt so abandoned (she has abandonment issues...though I have no idea why) that she ran out and filled that void with another person.  To be angry about it is like being angry at a child for making stupid choices.  They don't know any better.  

The hurt I felt about all of this stems from a place of "she did this to ME", but in reality, she didn't do anything to me at all.  She did this because of HER and the way her broken little brain works.  I was the one who did something to her.  Granted, it was well-deserved, going no contact.  But I abandoned her.  And it caused her pain, even though when she feels pain instead of being sad, she runs out and tries to get revenge (which is what I learned to do growing up and had to unlearn that throughout these years).  Replacing me was her revenge, as well as filling a void for her narcissistic supply.  She needed someone to let her feel like a victim and that woman gave that to her.  But it had nothing to do with me at all.  Not really.  

Because I am not replaceable.  But see, my mother wouldn't know that because she doesn't know me at all.  On the surface, yes, but not the real me.  My entire life with her has been me reacting to her behavior.  So that's all she knows me as: the part of me that reacts to her.  That's it.  And in an essence, that part of me is really a part of her.  She controls it, and knows how to control it well.  She knows if she does A then she can cause me to do B.  That's the only part of me she knows.  So in that way, I am replaceable.  But that's not really me.  That's her perception of me.  And she can take that perception, the part where she can elicit certain responses and behaviors from someone, and put them on anyone she wants.  She can get to know how certain people react and use it to her advantage.  She could have replaced me with a hobo on the street, it wouldn't have mattered to her.  Because to her, we're all the same person: an extension of her.  So in reality, I have no reason to let her behavior in this hurt me.  Because she didn't replace me, she replaced the part of me that she controlled.  She even treats her cats this way, playing favorites and scapegoats, controlling them all in any way she can.  It's quite insane how she can get her narcissistic supply from just about anything.  It's also quite funny.  "If I don't have people to control, I will use my cats!"  I feel bad for her cats.  Even though I don't think they even realize what's going on.  Or maybe they do and they just don't care as long as they get fed?  LOL  

So I will burn the pictures, to say goodbye to the part of me that was hurt by this action.  Because those parts of my life are now happily over.  And now I can move forward without all this junk stuffing up my life.  The junk is being burned, being thrown away, being donated, and whatever is left is being stored safely away from our house and our flooded basement.  And away from what was, towards what will be.  It feels like a fresh start for the first time in a very long time, both physically and metaphorically.  Everything always brings me back to this song: 

Back in the day, my mother said some cryptic shit to her BFF Christmas (and all our neighbors) that I was bipolar (because her therapist said I was, even though she'd never met me).  And that I would "never get diagnosed because if they told me I was bipolar, I would just get up and walk out".  

I was so confused by that last statement, as I've never gotten up and walked out of a conversation with anyone when it gets too hard (except with my oldest son, but he's got ASD and used to have ODD because of it, and when things would get too heated, I was told I needed to walk out so my son could build the tools to calm down without intervention, but that was strategic and not emotional on my part, and my mother had no idea anything about that).  And, not to mention, how would my mother even for one freaking second know how I am when I am in therapy with my therapist??  That cracks me up, because even when I've had shitty therapists, I've never gotten angry in the middle of a session.  Ever.  That's not how I am.  I may get angry later, but never during.  So, she just made it up as a way to say "Look, my daughter is one crazy bitch, so crazy in fact, that nobody is allowed to even tell her how crazy she is!!"  This was right after I came back into her life (unwillingly) after going no contact for fourteen months in 2018.

What she doesn't understand is that being bipolar isn't being crazy, it's a horrible mental illness to suffer from.  And I think my mother has it.  Not full blown, but more of a dysthymia/cyclothymia disorder.  Because she goes through these mood swings, constant and yet erratic, and she has her entire life.  It was worse before she got on the right meds, but it's still there.  And yesterday, she was on another upswing, constantly talking, sometimes to the point of making no sense (possibly dementia related, the not making sense part), just to hear herself make noise, like a motor.  And then she admitted that she hasn't been able to sleep lately.  Which really sends my alarms off, because just being hyper isn't necessarily mania (or hypomania).  Even though the way she used to get hyper really seemed like it was (the spending sprees, the giving money out to everyone to point of not being able to pay her bills, the super hyper behavior, the manic cleaning, the "I love everyone!" attitude--which was always followed eventually by the "I HATE EVERYONE!" attitude--the highs were always followed by the angry, bitter lows, sometimes I could see the switch happen right in front of me), she's better now, and her mood swings are WAY less pronounced, but then again, she's on some of the right meds.  But add that to the no sleeping part?  And that's way more of a red flag to keep an eye on.  As hypomania can lead to REAL mania, if left untreated.

Being bipolar (or similar) AND having NPD?  Man, that makes for some really bad choices, which she's made in her life, especially after coming down after a high episode.  

Yesterday, every single thing I did, she kept telling me what to do or commenting on.  She did this to my husband and kids, too.  She also kept talking about going shopping, which is what she does when she's on an upswing (or rather, used to).  She knew damn well how busy we were, but she's been following us around, jabbing our ears off, randomly cleaning her closet and drawers (again), asking for money, asking to go shopping, even though here we are, trying to save our belongings from getting ruined in the flood in our basement, as well as stopping the growth of mold, moving all our shit to a storage unit, etc. and she thinks I'm going to stop everything we're doing just take her shopping somewhere stupid for something she doesn't need.  Which is fine, normally, as we all sometimes just want to go buy things we don't need.  But she knew we were busy.  And when she has an upswing, she gets preoccupied with spending money.  So it didn't matter we were busy.  It didn't matter it was and is still somewhat of an emergency.  What matters is that mother is hyper and wants to buy things.  And she wants to clean everything that isn't dirty, run her mouth, get involved in everything that has nothing to do with her, boss around everyone, control whatever is going on, do shit she's not supposed to be doing, and not sleep.

And I can't say it's dementia related, as she's always been like this.  And when she's not like this, she's depressed, even though they keep changing and upping her meds.  So, I really really wonder if this is also a type of bipolar.  But it's manageable and she's not hurting herself or others, so that's a good thing.  And her doctors are all in the know about her depression, which again, waxes and wanes.  But this not sleeping thing I need to keep an eye on.  I am not sure if it's related to her hyperness or maybe it's due to something else (she's gone through periods of not sleeping before).  But either way, I need to keep on her to ask her about how well she's sleeping at night.  

Well, time to go fill up our garbage can again.  They just took it and now we have so much more (we're purging our house of stuff).  I may even have to call for another pickup this week.  We'll see.  

Ugh, I hate being sick and doing work.  But at least I can do it.  If my POTS start acting up, then I can't do anything at all.  So it's better to work with a cold than to not work with no cold and have a POTS flareup.  Yeah, I am not making any sense, am I?  I just need to get this shit done (the link to the post about this is above).  I am excited to have a purpose and a goal to be moving towards again.  

The waters are receding.  They aren't gone fully yet, but it's getting so much better.  Also, the chickens seem to be fine.  Hallelujah, praise the chicken gods!!  Also, I have a terrible head cold and yet, for the past two days, I've worked my ass off getting shit done with my hubbers.  

If you've been reading my blog at all lately, or since 2020, you'd know that we moved in with my mother (or rather, we all moved together) into a house.  It was the right thing to do at the time (even though in 2020, I thought I was going to go insane living with her) financially, as well as for her because she's literally crazy and needs someone watching her.  But you'd also know that our plan is to GTFO of here ASAP.  And now, we have moved forward with one of our steps for doing so: we got a storage unit.  But not only did we get a storage unit, I am purging EVERYTHING that I can, too.  So that way the storage unit won't even be that filled (well, that's the plan, anyways).  Saturday, I purged about 90% of our kitchen storage in the garage AND I donated it the next day to a woman who came and got it all.  Then yesterday (Sunday), we cleaned out about half of our basement (or just about half), which is saying a lot, as it was literally almost completely full.  

Now, my mother is a hoarder.  She buys 1,000 of the same thing, for no apparent reason.  I grew up doing the same exact thing, because it was all I knew.  I am sure her mother before her did the same thing and so on.  But I've been changing since 2018, because we lost everything we owned and became homeless.  I had to learn how to build our lives back up, but without all the chaos.  As it turns out, I did good with some things and not so good with others.  One issue I have is with boxes.  I save them.  Why??  I have no idea.  But after our basement flooded (like a river) a week ago, I learned that cardboard boxes, unless you're moving to a new house, are stupid to keep for any reason.  And all must be burned.  Oh, I will take a pic of the boxes I have in my backyard drying and waiting to be burned.  It's insane.  So our basement was filled with a large amount of boxes.  Some filled with items, but most were filled with more empty boxes.  I am soooooo done with that.  I will break them down the moment I get them and burn those fuckers to ash.  

But back to my mother's hoarding issues: my basement is also filled with 50 twin sized comforters and sheet sets, 500 coffee cups, and in the garage I think I literally found 6 mixing bowls and god knows how many pots and pans.  She's one person.  Who apparently needed SIX mixing bowls (plus the couple I keep in the kitchen).  Oh, and the loaf pans??  Good grief.  She loves to collect.  Now, I used to collect books.  And in this moment, I still have a good amount of books, but I used to have boxes upon boxes upon boxes of books.  Like, too many to read in one lifetime.  It was insane!  I loved collecting them, though.  I learned that from her.  Funny, yet she always shamed me for being just like her.  Must be projecting the shame she felt for herself being a close hoarder onto me.  It's so dumb how humans do that to others.  Why?  What purpose does that serve?  I mean, I get it, it makes them feel like they aren't the ones doing the thing they feel ashamed of, but still.  Why are humans so self-serving?  

Anyways, part of my overwhelm from my last post was based on the fact that I don't get help to get this shit done.  My husband either always has a migraine or is too busy or I am just feeling too bad to get shit done myself, and it never gets done.  So the idea that we have 1,000 things to do, but not a real timeline in which they would get done was just weighing heavily on me.  But, on Saturday, we started the process and now we have a storage unit (which we will be moving to a new one very soon for price reasons) and now, when we decide to move, most of our stuff will be in storage already and we won't even have to take it with us.  Yay!  

And now, we're buckling down financially and we'll be looking for a new home, hopefully by the beginning of the year.  Or sooner, if something become available.  

Now, all that water needs to fucking GTFO of my basement so we can seal it, so hopefully no more water comes in, and we can get to work on my hubby working from home (which he'll do soon--we even figured out that he may get to work home around 4 days a week) and to get my store going.  I am soooo jazzed to start making clothes again (I have so many ideas for awesome shit), as well as my sculptures and miniatures.  I am raring to go.  I just need the space to do it in!  I would like to make enough money to have an office, but we'll see about that.  

But in sad news, we've decided that my elderly dog (well, dogs) don't have much more time go.  We let our last dog go far too long, until he could barely walk by himself, until we put him down.  And now our 14 year old black lab is soooooo terrified of being alone that he's destroying walls and doors and whatnot, as well as losing bladder and poopchute control.   He has dementia, like his brother did, and hardly ever asks for attention, and is only focused on food (just like his brother was).  We know it's not going to get better, but only worse.  So we decided to wait for our 17 year old chiweenie to give out (or maybe not that long, if our lab gets worse) and we'll have them both put down.  Recently, the vet told us we'd have to put our chiweenie down soon, due to the lens in his eye coming loose, giving him excruciating pain.  But the lens dropped down into the bottom of his eye, and it stopped hurting him.  So while he's almost completely blind, he's doing mostly okay (minus all his other health issues).  But his collapsing trachea is getting worse, which causes him to cough a lot more than usual.  So, we'll see.  And our girl, our sheltie, has a mass on her tummy that's attached to her muscle that may prove deadly eventually, which our vet is sort of worried about, but I hope not.  She's only around 10.  I hate that dogs live for such a short period of time.  I wish they were like parrots and other birds that live to be 40.  But still, that doesn't seem long enough either.  We've had our lab since he was 3 months old.  And our chiweenie was around 5 when we found him.  And it's all just flown by.  Time is cruel to adults.  When you're a kid, time crawls.  When you're an adult, it's like a bullet train.  

Well, they could have lived elsewhere.  They could have died already, being hit by a car or hurt by another animal or person.  Instead, they lived a good life with us.  So that's all I can ask for, right?  To know they were taken care of and loved immensely.  And we got to enjoy every fucking second of it.  I can't cry because I have a horrible cold and my sinuses will explode if I do.  So, I will just leave it there.  

Today will be a day of rest from all my stress.  I will create instead.  I have some projects I am working on, just for myself, just for fun.  I got a huge sketchbook from 5 Below and it's so freaking floppy that it's almost impossible not to destroy it when storing it or moving it around.  So I am going to reinforce both the front and back covers and decorate it.  I am excited to start using it, but I can't until I do this.  I just need to find a freaking hole puncher!  Which I can't, because I just moved all my art stuff to our basement "office", which is flooded still (we keep sucking it up and it keeps coming in, although less so, finally) and I can't remember where I put it (I have more than one, but I can't find anything in there, even though there's not very much).  Oh, maybe it's in my drawer in my room?  We can only hope.  

If you're decorating a spiral bound cover, you can cover under the spiral part by marking where the spirals are, and hole punching where x and y meet (width vs. spirals) and then cutting lines from the hole to the edge and popping them in.  It's kind of genius.  But I need to do it with both cardboard and the cover paper (pretty scrapbook paper), but without a hole puncher, I can't do shit.  Ugh.  (if you're reading this and confused by my directions, just state so below and I will show you step by step pictures)

Oh, I also need to finish cleaning my room.  But that my be fun.  I also need to burn lots of cardboard, but it needs to dry first.  So that's for another day.  

Yesterday, my mother was being bossy AF.  But I'll continue that in my next post.  

So, we had a lot of rain lately.  So much so, that our basement is aa river and now we're fucked.  Fucked as fucked can be.  My oldest son's room was down there and it molded his bed.  And we JUST moved into the separate room, creating an office/art studio for my husband and I, and that got the worst of it.  

So now, our plan is to move.  Granted, we always planned on moving, but we are not putting one more fucking penny into this house unless we absolutely have to.  My oldest son's room now is our living room.  Good grief.  I feel so overwhelmed about it all, too.  We rented a storage unit the other day so we can move all our basement storage and our garage storage into it.  It's not a lot to move, but it's a lot to clean up.  I just want it done.  There is STILL water everywhere.  It's like, will it ever recede?  It is a little, but not fast enough.  It's been almost a week.  

AND the flood may kill our chickens, too.  They all are having issues digesting their food and may die if they're impacted.  I had no idea, but the food in their chicken coop turned all their sand into hard dirt and they had no grit (what they use to digest their food) as they were using sand before.  Now their tummies are distended and if the grit I gave them doesn't work, they could die.  Maybe not all, but most.  We are new chicken owners and had no idea this could happen.  

AND our black lab has dementia (whose 14) and is shitting in his sleep and destroying our house if we accidently leave him somewhere he doesn't want to be.  I went out to feed our chickens this morning and the dog ripped a bigger hole in my bedroom door.  He's already done this outside, to our new door frame in the living room, and now my bedroom door twice.  

And our one little dog (who's 17), is on his last legs.  He's pretty much completely blind and about 98% deaf.  

And I just want to take a fucking nap.  

And throughout all this, my mother keeps being an asshole about me doing shit for her.  "Did you get me mints yet?  Where's my mints?  Where are my cigarettes?  Where's my coffee?" Blah blah blah.  I keep telling her I am busy with all this shit, and she doesn't care.  Oh, and she's bugging me to take her to the resale shops.  As though I have money to give her to spend after taking care of all this shit.  

God, I am so overwhelmed.  

On top of all to this, remember my neighbor who wanted me to watch her dog for two entire weeks?  Now this crazy bitch has asked me to watch him for a MONTH.  I accidentally said yes, because I was confused by what she was asking.  Holy shit.  I keep telling her about all the issues going on at house, about how I have to cook three meals for dinner each night (keto, granny approved, and for me and my hubby), how much laundry I do, how many animals I have to care for, and it just literally goes right over her head that it's just too much.  I even tell her that I have ADHD and it's hard for me to remember things and to get things done.  Nope.  Nothing.  Doesn't even phase her.  She's clueless.  But I do know this is my fault and my problem, that she will never ever "get it" no matter how much I hint around.  I have to come right out and state "I cannot do this".  Who the fuck leaves their dog for an entire month home alone with neighbors checking on him several times a day?  Why do they even have a fucking dog?  I know, I should not judge.  But today?  He thought she was leaving, and he started shaking!!  So it obviously bothers him.  She doesn't care.  I am not even saying that out of my own issues with her, I am saying that because I watched her today not give a damn that he was scared she was leaving.  

For real though, our next door neighbor (we'll call her NDN for short) expects us in January to come over to her house at least three times a day to let her dog out, and literally cook him chicken for dinner in the oven.  Every.  Single.  Day.  For thirty fucking days.  And she's paying $10 a day.  LMAO!!!!  We all have a life over here and why on earth would she think anyone could do that for that price?  Just board the poor thing!  

This is all so freaking overwhelming.  

I know, step by step, just get everything done, step by step.  One thing at a time.  Haul shit to my storage unit.  Shopvac up the water several times a day until it's gone (as we have been).  And just wait.  Give the chickens their grit and just wait.  I can't control the outcome of any of this (other than the dog situation).  I can't make the basement water dry up any more than I can make the chickens not die.  It makes me sad to think that could happen, but I cannot control it.  The only way to save them is surgery and there are too many of them for that.  

We are refinancing our car to $100 less a month, and we'll be saving about $1,000 that can go towards my largest credit card, which will up our credit score, which will help us buy a new house eventually.  So that's something to look forward to.  

The creation of our office was supposed to be the start of my online store.   The money from that is going to help pay down any credit cards, as well as build our down payment for a house.  And then it floods like a motherfucker in there (luckily, everything was in plastic totes!) and stops us in our tracks.  What on earth??  Why is life like that?  I hate feeling like the universe is conspiring against us.  The first time I started all my stuff back in 2020, I created all these items of clothing and then my mother's asshole cat went down and pissed on all of it!!!  And I could not stop the cats from going in the basement until recently when my son moved his room out of that room, because of the flooding.  We always knew it would flood, but this was like massive because of the amount of the rain we got.  I mean, I know that the water will go away and it will dry out and we'll get awhile before it happens again (especially after I put hydraulic cement all around the floor edges and on the floor cracks).  But it's just too much all at once right now.  

At least my mother is only being annoying and not really causing me too much trouble.  I hope it stays that way.  

Okay, well, we'll see how this all turns out.  Yippee. 

My mother has a HUGE issue with being told no.  She also has huge issues with boundaries and following rules, too.  So, as I said in my last post, we bought a cigarette roller to make her cigarettes as a way to save money instead of buying her cartons.  Everyday, I, or one of my kids, roll her a pack.  And she keeps getting on our asses about rolling them herself, and keeping the machine in her room.  We let her roll some, but the issue is is that the machine needs frequent oiling, as well as the actual papers are super delicate.  She has dementia and forgets things all the time.  So I am not having my money go down the drain with her forgetting and leaving the papers out to get destroyed by her cats or whatever else silly thing that could happen.  So she asked me for the machine to put in her room and I said no.  End of story, right?  

Well, yesterday, she said "Oh, I cleaned out a drawer in my room to put the cigarette machine in!"  I said "Why?  I already told you no."  The other day she asked for the machine and said "Can you give me MY cigarette machine, please?"  I was like you didn't pay for it, so why is it yours?  But I didn't say that, I just said no.  I'll roll them myself.  So this time, I was like well, I'm going to take the opening to state whose machine it is.  So I said "It stays in my room because it's mine."  She said "Oh, well you do that then."  And then she went into her room.  Again, no thank you for rolling her a pack of cigarettes (though, I don't honestly care, I only care because she'll bitch about the things I do for her, but never says thank you--though that's not 100% true, she sometimes says thank you, but usually doesn't).

I am not trying to play games here.  I am not trying to control her.  But this shouldn't even be an issue, as I bought it and it was our idea, so her claiming ownership over something that clearly isn't hers is just dumb.  I don't even know why I care.  Or why I'm even blogging about it.  But I write these things down so I later can remember and don't get duped into believing she isn't as bad I am making her out to be at whatever point in the future.  I write so I can remember.  We all know how narcissists love to rewrite history and make us question our truths.  This blog is the only reason that doesn't happen to me anymore.  Her BFF Christmas once told me something that didn't ring quite right in my head, so I looked it up on this blog and I was right.  She was saying she didn't say something and blamed it all on their mutual friend who had passed away.  Turns out, Christmas was just as guilty as that friend was.  

I write, so I don't have to remember.  Because memory is flawed.  We can't always trust it.  I know I can't trust my own memory much of the time.  

In other news, she took the garbage cans in two weeks ago, even after an entire year of not doing it, knowing she isn't allowed.  I hate that.  I hate that I can make a rule, and then I have to fight tooth and nail for her to follow it, and then when it finally takes, she will just revert back at any time.  This is why I cannot trust her and I have to stay vigilant, which is tiring as fuck.  She's a tricky little dick.  And I should just let things go, but if I let her start taking in the cans, she'll start getting the mail, and we can't have that.  There are too many things in the mail she will either steal (she's notorious for stealing people's mail), buy, or inquire about buying.  And, much of what is being sent to us is none of her business.  So she's not allowed to get the mail, ever.  But the garbage cans are right by the mailbox, so I have to stop that so the other doesn't happen.  If she'd only just freaking listen.  

Do you know what ODD is?  Oppositional defiance disorder?  My mother has that 100%.  And this is what it looks like when a 75 year old woman has ODD.  She pushes against authority, me and her doctors orders, any time she possibly can.  It's ridiculous to see a old lady act like that.  It's pathetic.  And sad.  And kind of funny to think about.  I mean, she thinks she's so badass, but on the outside she looks like a total jackoff.  It's ridiculous.  And the thing is, while I do not say that out loud, nor would I ever (because I am not into making people feel bad about themselves), I do show it in my actions.  I don't let her get away with lying, bossing people around, being controlling, or being rude anymore.  I point it out to her every single time (mostly), and she knows that I know that she knows that I know.  

via GIPHY

Deep down, she knows I know the truth about her.  That the jig is up.  No more "Bossy Grandma".  She tries, because that's all she knows, but she always fails, one way or another.  Deep down, she knows I see her shame.  And she does not like being exposed like that.  She HATES being vulnerable.  So this has completely changed her demeanor, for the most part.  She can't help getting her digs in where she can, but most of the time she just pretends like we all aren't there.  With her, it's either all or absolutely nothing.  Either she gets the entire cake, or she pretends like the cake never existed in the first place.  So that means either she has all the control, or I do.  Because if she gets a little, she will try to take it all.  Which is what the issue is with the cigarette machine and why I cannot let her have it.  If she gets it, she gets free reign to up her smoking game 1000% and that will force me to go back to paying almost $200 a month or more for her smoking.  If I keep it, I can make sure she stays well within the pack a day area, and eventually maybe less.  

I am not trying to control her as much as I am trying to not let her control our finances with her ridiculous spending habits.  Before I took control of all the finances, she was spending so much of her money that she almost could not afford to help pay bills.  And her spending was on trivial bullshit that she didn't need, with some of it being crazy things like glasses for use with computer screens, random ass medicine she wasn't allowed to take, exercise machines she didn't use, etc.  I do think my mom is a little bipolar, or at least has a little bit of hypomania, which caused her to act erratic and spend too much money, and go into rages where she'd throw everything around in her house when she couldn't find things.  She is better now, but still has issues with this, just lesser so.  

I am just looking forward to the day....actually, I don't even know what I am looking forward to anymore.  I know that "this is a season, not a lifetime", this living with her and being where we are in life.  But I feel like my whole life is living in "seasons" created by other people.  My parents, my ex, other people....that we just keep moving from one season to the next.  Is that was life is?  If so, how the hell are we supposed to thrive?  

Again, like I said last time, I am working on a program.  So maybe that's how I'll thrive?  I hope so.  Because I am just so tired.  I need to find my mojo because I can feel depression creeping in again.  Ugh.  

Hushed whispers and quiet words.  That's how you know mother is talking about you.  She wants you to know it, too.  She covers her mouth from the side, as though that lessens her volume or so you can't read her lips.  But it's all for show.  She wants you to wonder what she's saying.  And she wants you to know it's about you.  

And I always fell for it.  

As a kid, I became obsessed with listening to her talk shit about me to my father.  Whatever they'd be arguing about, things I have zero memory of, she'd always pull a 180 in the middle of it and start in about me.  That way it shifted father's attention from whatever he was angry about that she did, to something I supposedly did.  The thing is, I wasn't that bad of a kid.  I didn't get into trouble all the time or anything.  In reality, I'd say I was a quite good child.  I didn't always clean my room or do what I was told in the exact moment I was asked to do it, but what kid does?  I wasn't lazy, I just wasn't motivated.  I have ADHD (minus the hyperactivity), and ASD, so my mind was always elsewhere, on a myriad of subjects, all that interested me way more than cleaning up did.  I am still like that to this day LOL  But for some reason, even though that was pretty much the only thing I did wrong, she always had something about me to bitch at my father about.  I am am pretty sure that she made most of it up, whatever it was.  

One day, about a year ago or so, I said to my mother "Good parents do not always talk shit about their kids to their friends!"  She said "All the ones I know do!"  I laughed really hard and said "Yes, I know!  There isn't a single good parent among any of your friends or family!!"  All her friends/family members are either a) narcissists, b) reverse narcissists (meaning codependents that are actually narcissists), c) drug addicts and alcoholics and abusive.  She laughed in my face and rolled her eyes.  But the funny part is that she's so fucking stupid that she really believes that.  She believes that she and all her friends were actually good parents.  That is so pathetic.  And angering.  And just...defeating.  There is no resolution here.  There is no closure.  There never will be.  

Two nights ago, I had a dream.  I dreamed that my mother, younger and still smoking, was standing outside and making up some lies to me about why she needed something done that I was not going to do for her.  So I said she was a liar.  I got closer and closer and closer to her, yelling that she was a liar, over and over again, saying "All you do is lie!  That's all that ever comes out of your mouth!"  Until I got so close, I could see her skin clearly.  And all of a sudden, I wasn't me anymore.  I had lost my corporeal form and instead was everything, except her.  She closed her eyes slowly and froze in time.  So I just stared at her and said "This is MY dream, I can say whatever I like to you with no repercussions!"  But instead of laying into her, and telling her exactly what I thought of her, I just stared at her.  I studied her face.  The blue undertones in her skin.  The varicose veins around her nose.  Her blonde eyelashes.  I just kept looking at her  and looking at her, wondering what it was I was actually looking at.  Then I decided there was nothing to say, since none of it mattered anyways.  And then, just like that, POOF, I switched dreams.  I didn't want to bother with her anymore.  

There is a certain feeling of complete power when you have a lucid dream.  Especially one like that.

When I woke up, it felt like something had released in me.  A knot of sorts.  I am still angry and still annoyed with her, but something inside of me broke open.  Like, the wall that held in the part of me that keeps quiet every time she's rude.  Or some other wall.  I am not sure.  But yesterday, I rolled her a pack of cigarettes and she went to my son and complained that he rolled them too thinly, and I yelled from the kitchen while cooking dinner "YOU ARE WELCOME".  She then said "Well, I said I would roll them!"  (We recently bought a cigarette machine because it's a billion times cheaper than buying cartons, and now she's keeps calling it "hers" and saying she needs to keep it in her room, even though it's mine--I don't smoke, but that doesn't matter, it's not hers, since I paid for it).  I said again "YOU ARE WELCOME.  I am the one who rolled them for you, and you're welcome for doing so."  She always bitches about everything we do for her.  After I said that she got all flabbergasted and rude with me.  She even lied and told me that I said for her to tell my son thank you, and I said "No I did not."  That could be her dementia though, forgetting moments later what was actually said.  But still, I was standing up for myself and my family, so that she'll think twice next time about bitching about something we do for her.  From now on, I will say "YOU ARE WELCOME" whenever she complains. 

Today, someone from my cousin's house called at 6:30am.  I assume it was my aunt.  I listen to all of her calls.  Believe me, it's not because I want to, as it's horribly torturous to listen to crazy old people talk to each other.  I know it looks and sounds petty, but she hasn't earned the right of my trust, and never will.  Now, a parent doing this to a child, that's an invasion of privacy.  I would never do that to my kids.  Ever.  But my mother has dementia, and is a narcissist.  When we first moved in, I never once thought about doing that to her.  But after I found out that she was telling people I was holding her hostage and performing "elder abuse" on her by not letting her outside, not even in the front yard, I stopped trusting her completely.  At the time, we were in the beginning of lockdown, and she never would wash her hands or wear a mask, so no, I did not let her leave the house to go shopping (her favorite hobby).  But I did let her go for walks or do whatever she liked otherwise.  But she had her BFF believing that I was committing elder abuse, who almost called the police on me.  

I also found out she was plotting behind my back to do things she wasn't supposed to be doing, as well as trying to get people out here to do work that didn't need to be done that we could not afford.  It was insane.  Monitoring her calls kept my family safe from her, as well as kept her safe from herself.  

Nowadays, it's just a precaution, because she's notorious for being a good girl for a long time and then just snapping and starting up doing stupid things again.  But in the meantime, I am being tortured by listening to these calls.  Ugh.  My cousin, the one who started this blog off originally, never calls.  My mother hasn't heard from her in almost a year.  I love it.  It goes to show that the only reason my cousin had anything to do with her at all was for the gossip.  To her, from her, about her, etc.  My cousin is a HUGE narcissist, and has done everything in her power to fuck my life up.  But not without my mother's help.  So when we moved in here, all I could think about was their relationship, and how I couldn't stand that my mother would have anything to do with her after what she did to me.  But all my mother saw was that I had just come back from being 14 months no contact with her and my cousin jumped right in help her out.  Because of course she did.  She had nothing to do with her before that.  But the moment I was out of the picture, BAM!  Cousin to the rescue!  What a great racket.  God, after I left, so many, many people came out of the woodworks to step in and take advantage of my mother.  And she thought that they were all being nice to her.  And that's not her dementia, either.  That's her narcissism.  

Now that I am back, everyone left.  Some, because I made them leave (like I changed the telephone number in her address book of the woman my mother replaced me with, someone she hated before, so my mother couldn't contact her anymore--she was married to a drug dealer, so they were bad news and should have never been in her life to begin with), but most left on their own.  Leaving my mother all alone, with me.  Yay.  Her BFF Christmas stayed.  And a couple more of her friends, one who uses her to bitch about her life to and the other one keeps getting more and more distant, as my mother's dementia makes it hard for them to talk to her anymore (what a good friend, eh?).  

She has nobody left to whisper to.  

Except Christmas.  Which she did the other day.  So, I immediately called Christmas after she got home and got her talking about my mother to see if she'd share what they were talking about outside by C's car, but apparently it was nothing.  Or, if it was something, she just didn't tell me.  I could care less if she was talking shit, what I care about is the safety of my family.  And if she's planning something behind my back again.  But I don't think she was.  She was just smoking.  So much so, it made Christmas sick.  

I also told C to call me before she comes over, because she keeps showing up without calling and nobody knows she's even here.  Because, duh.  Who shows up at a friend's house across town without calling?  We used to share an alley, so that was a different circumstance.  But now there's pricey gas involved.  I know C is losing it, too.  I am not sure she should be driving.  But she's not my mother, so what can I do?  

That dream I had felt powerful.  Like, in a way that I should make it mean something.  I should learn from it.  I should change how I deal with my stress from my mother because of it.  Easier said than done, but I will try to keep it in my mind when I am spinning out thinking about something stupid she did or said.  Like her always (in the past) talking shit about me to others.  "Why even care about it?  It doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of things."  Like I said, easier said than done.

I am on my way to developing a program for healing from parental narcissistic abuse.  I hope one day I will be able to put it into use and help people.  But we'll see.  My ADHD brain is my biggest blocker to getting anything done.  As is my horrible imposter syndrome.  But hey, maybe my program can help fix that?  Who knows?