Lately, it's not been great for me.  Besides going to the ER with a huge cyst on my ovary that everyone thought was a kidney stone, and my mother being a total psycho for weeks, I've been having an upsurge in my adrenaline spikes due to my hyperadrenic POTS.  This makes my anxiety out of control, it fucks with my sleep and ramps up my sleep disorders.  Last night?  I woke up unable to open my left eye.  The rest of my face worked and it quickly fixed itself (I think I fell back asleep for a moment and then it went back to normal), but still, that was scary.  I cannot sleep more than hour or so with this upsurge in my POTS, too.  I keep waking up from adrenaline surges and I'm shaking.  I hate when this happens.  Also, my thoughts can spin out of control, too, which is something that's happened to me since childhood when my anxiety is bad.  And this is also when my migraines amp up.  Ugh.  Then on top of that, I decide to have it out with my mother yesterday, because after Sunday (Thanksgiving weekend), she went back to acting like everything was normal.  So I yelled at her last week about it.  Then she immediately went back to acting like everything was normal again.  Then she got out her cleaning supplies and decided to clean things in the kitchen I already cleaned, which is something she loves to do to act like what I did wasn't good enough.  And I just couldn't take it anymore.  

I am just so tired of her getting away with everything.  So I let her know very clearly she did not get away with anything, and never will.  Here is a basic outline of our conversation.  Then after that, I have snippets of our conversation that I cannot remember the order to.  

After I yelled at her though, I did not feel better at all.  I wish I did.  But she refused, once again, to take responsibility for a damn thing she did or said.  And it only frustrated me more, rather than make me feel better.  So, I felt horrible the rest of the day.  Not because of what I said to her, as I am always very succinct in my words with her and I never call her names or really swear (I do use swear words, but not directly at her).  I just state facts.  But her response is what made me feel sick.  As I feel utterly defeated because she'll never ever take responsibility for what she does.  I feel like I will always lose, as long as I live with her.  But I did give her an ultimatum.  And she knows, from previous experience with me, that I 100% mean what I say.  Okay, here it is.

Here is how our conversation went: 

"Why can't you apologize?"

"I am sorry." (in an angry voice)

"That's not an actual apology.  But for what?  What are you sorry for?"

"For cleaning the bathroom."

"NO.  That is NOT what you should be apologizing for!"

"What should I apologize for then?"

"Are you kidding me??  You should know!  You were violent with me!"

"Oh, I forgot."

"What??  Sure you did.  This just happened a week ago and you forgot you were violent with me?"

"Yes, I forgot."

"Funny, you always seem to 'forget' when you do something wrong.  Just like you 'forgot' that daddy used to abuse you and you both abused me as a kid."

"Oh, I didn't forget that." (meaning his abuse of her, not of me)

"Really??  Because you told me that my childhood didn't happen.  That I must have lived in a totally different home from you because none of that ever happened."

"Why do you always bring up the past?"

"Because it's not the past for me.  It never will be.  I live it every single day of my life and will until the day I die.  Why do you always want to pretend like it didn't happen?  Why can you take responsibility for what you did wrong?"

"You always do that.  Bring up stuff form the past.  It's over."  

"So, is what you did a week ago in the past, too?"

"Yes."  

"The hell it is.  You are like this all the time.  Well, not all the time, but you are a very violent person.  You've been violent with me too many times, mom.  And I don't think you'll ever stop.  And you blame it on being crabby."  

"Why did we buy this house together?  Why don't I just move out?"

"Why is that your go-to?  Why can't you just answer my questions or comment on what I say?  Why do you always bring it back to that?  It doesn't have anything to do with what happened." 

"I am asking you, why did we move in together if you hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you.  I hate your shitty behavior.  I hate your violence.  And I hate the fact that you can't own up to any of it."  (so I guess, I do hate her, because that makes up the whole of who she is)

"Again, I am asking you, why did we move in together?"

"Last Sunday, you were violent with me, and that was unacceptable" (I am ignoring her trying to evade)

"Why did we move in together?"

"Last Sunday, you were violent with me, and that was unacceptable.  You will NOT do that again or there will be consequences."  

"Whatever."

"Do you hear me?  I mean it.  I realize you had terrible parents who never taught you there were consequences for your actions, but I am your mother now and I will enforce them.  If you EVER are violent with me, my husband, my kids or any animal in this house, there WILL be consequences, do you hear me?"

"Yes."

"I want to hear you say it.  That you will not be violent again in this house, period."

"I will never do that ever again."  

"Thank you." 

(door shut, she was still talking about something, I don't know what)

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Now, that was the gist of our conversation.  Now here are some more wonderful tidbits that were said during this wonderful time: 

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"All you had to do was say 'I don't want to live here anymore' and they'd have taken you back and given you to a different family."

"You mean the adoption agency?"

"Yes.  I could have called them and they'd have taken you back and put you with someone else." 

I pause because of the horribleness and stupidity that was coming out of her mouth.  "You do realize you LEGALLY adopted me, right?  That you guys are my LEGAL parents.  The adoption agency had zero control over me by then, right?  You couldn't just return me like a broken product from a store!  You would have had to give me up for adoption for that happen!  Wait, would you have been okay with that?  Just handing me over like that?"  

"Yes."  

"WOW.  What a shitty thing to say!!  I mean, it's a total lie, as you would have kept your claws in me forever and would have laughed in my face had I asked for that back then, but still, what a shitty thing to say now!!"  

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"I did apologize." 

"Saying it in a shitty tone of voice is NOT a real apology."

"I said in a nice tone of voice, too, and that wasn't good enough." (she's admitting she said it in a shitty voice)

"It wasn't nice, it was your fake nice voice.  It was condescending.  It wasn't real."

"I don't know what you want from me."

It was then I realized, I didn't know what I wanted from her either.  Because I knew she couldn't understand what it means to act like a normal human and actually mean her apology, and I could not explain it to her.  Because I knew she couldn't give it to me.  I wanted her to be normal.  That's what I wanted.  But she's incapable, so I just looked at her and said quietly "I don't know either."  

And that's when I felt it.  That's when I felt the underlying sick feeling of "this will never get better" seeping in, that ended up staying for the rest of the night.  It was defeat.  I was feeling utter and total defeat.  I knew I could never win with her and get what I wanted.  That none of the things I brought up to her would ever get resolved and never would.  I've come to this conclusion before, but for some reason, it just brought it all back.  It's a numb feeling.  It's total emptiness.  And as long as I have contact with her, it will never go away.  It's underlying in everything I do as long as I am around her.  But I have to remind myself, only one more year (or less).  That's it.  As long as I can stick to a budget, we will have saved enough to put a down payment on a house.  And then we can then put her in a home and be done with her.  I just have to keep this all in mind when I think of spending money I don't need to spend, that it's being saved for the greater good.

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"You've always done violent things to me.  You blame it on being crabby."

"You knew that before you moved in with me, that I've always been like that." 

"Wait...so you're admitting you're violent?  What?  You're admitting you know you're like this?"  And then it dawned on me she's admitting to being crabby, not violent.  But in reality, it's not actually different.  While she's downplaying her violence and making it palatable by calling it "crabby", she still was admitting to being a violent person.  But in her simplistic and delusional mind, what she's doing isn't so bad.  It's just "being crabby".  

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"What you did was unacceptable."

"I wanted my bag of stuff."

"Your bag of baby wipes?"

"It had other things in it!"

"A toilet brush?  Are you kidding me?  You think it was okay that you got violent with me over a toilet brush and baby wipes?"

"My scrubbie and my cleaning brush was in there, too!"

"You're missing the point here, mother!  No matter what was in the bag, it was NOT okay for you to shove a door into me and then start beating on it and screaming for me to give you your bag back!  I don't care if that bag was full of gold!  Your behavior was inappropriate and wrong!!"

"If you knew I wanted it so bad, then why didn't you just give it to me?"  

"Are you kidding me right now?  What on earth did you think I would do to your bag of cleaning supplies?  Flush them down the toilet??  Even if I did, they are all replaceable.  What YOU did was not an appropriate reaction to me entering the bathroom.  It made no sense.  And then you became violent with me. OVER BABY WIPES!!"

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"Tell me this, if you came home and found my husband doing to me what you were doing to me, do you think that would have been okay?" 

Silence.

"So, if you came home and found Mr. Brooks being violent with me, the way you were, you'd have just stood there and let him do what he wanted with you saying nothing?" 

Silence. 

"Because if my husband had done to me what you did, I would DIVORCE HIM!!" 

"I am not your husband."

"Damn right you're not.  Which makes me wonder if I would not tolerate that kind of behavior from him, why should I tolerate it from you?" 

Silence.

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"You never take responsibility for what you do wrong, ever."

"Neither do you."

"Really now?  What have I ever done wrong to you?"

Silence.

I know what she means here.  Because there is only one thing she's ever complained about what I did to her.  "Oh, you mean when I stopped talking to you for fourteen months in 2017?  That was not me doing something wrong to you, it was 100% your fault."

"Sure, blame me for everything."

"Of course I will blame you for what you did wrong.  You were being abusive to me.  So I went no contact with you.  I was protecting myself and my family from you."

She started to say something but I cut her off, because there is nothing she could say to make me going no contact with her my fault.  I would NEVER stop talking to my own mother if I didn't have to.  Not many people would.  It's not like it was fun for me.  I had PTSD and dreamed about her every single night for almost a year straight (no joking).  I lived in fear of running into her again and having to speak to her, knowing damn well she'd turn it into some kind of pity party.  Remember, at the time, I lived one block away from her.  So the fear was constant whenever I left the house.  None of that was fun for me.  And when in 2018 we had to go back into her life due to being homeless?  It was EXACTLY how I feared it would happen.

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"I can live on my own!"

"You can't even walk into the doctor's office alone, how can you live alone?  You can't climb stairs so you can't do laundry, you can't cook food, shovel, mow the lawn, or pay the bills, or remember one word the doctor tells you, and you cannot drive at all.  So, how will you get anywhere or do anything for yourself?"  

"I can, too!!  I can live on my own!"  (she says in anger)

Sigh.

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"I do everything for you and you're not even grateful."

"I am too!! I always say thank you!"

"Sometimes you do, sure.  But then you get into a mood where every single thing I do is wrong: it's not fast enough, good enough, or it should have been done different.  And then you don't say thank you, you just complain.  And sometimes you even yell at me about it!"

Silence.

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"You hurt me that day.  Physically hurt me after I went to the ER for being in so much pain, which put me back in tons of pain again and I had to start taking my pain medication again after finally being off of it.  And when I brought that up to you last week when I yelled at you about it, you said NOTHING.  No apology.  NOTHING."  

Silence.  

Then she changed the subject.  

Both my kids heard this and commented on it.  My oldest son was in the basement and heard everything and my youngest was in his room and heard it all, too.  Both said "Wow, you brought it up to her AGAIN, and she still said nothing.  No apology.  No excuses.  She just didn't say anything at all."  And because of that, they are both still pretty angry at her.

A loving mother would say "Oh wow, I can't believe I did that to you.  I am so sorry I hurt you.  I was overreacting and should never have let myself get that angry about nothing at all.  But I am really, really sorry I hurt you.  I wasn't thinking straight."  Granted, a loving mother would NEVER have done the thing she did in the first place (or any of the other million things she's done).  But even if a loving mother lost her cool and exploded over something stupid, she would take responsibility and be actually sorry.  My mother is incapable.  She can't even admit she did anything wrong.  She still thinks she was just "crabby" and it was no big deal.  Even though she physically hurt me.  But she can't admit she did that, because if she did, it would mean she's at fault. 

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I honestly can't remember any more.  If I do, I will come back here and add to it.  Remember, I write these things down for future remembering.  That way, if there is an issue, I can come back and see what was exactly said.  It's been helpful for so many reasons.  And you should do the same.  Somewhere nobody can get a hold of it and throw it away.  

Okay, that's the whole of it.  For now.