I realized something...

Being self aware doesn't make it any easier to lose your everlovin mind.

In fact, it kind of makes you like Elmer Fudd or the Coyote in those old Looney Tunes cartoons, where they walk out onto thin air but are perfectly okay UNTIL they look down.  Only when they realize they're not standing on stable ground is when they plunge into a very painful fall.

Knowing that you're going nuts is sort of the same thing.

So what's driving me crazy this week, you may ask.

Well, I realized that I strongly resent my mother.

I'm supposed to be training her on the computer, but it turned out to be an exercise in frustration.  Not because she can't do it, but because she can.  Only she wants me sitting there right beside her the entire time - and I just can't do that.  I have work of my own to do, a script to write, a family ... I just can't babysit her.

And I'm firmly convinced that's what she wants. 

Gone is the independent woman from my childhood.  In her place is a bitter woman who thinks that no one will be there if not to pity her or take care of her. 

And... most unfortunately for her... she didn't raise me to be the nurturing type.

Which is where the resentment comes in.

When I realized that my sense of abandonment was exacerbated by the fact my mother did not nurture me through the mourning process of my dad's death, and that lead me to such self doubt and low self worth, it's hard for me to generate these loving warm fuzzies for her in her time of need.

In fact, it makes me want to avoid being around her at all.

I know it's selfish.  I know it sounds bad.  But somewhere deep inside of me is that scared little girl who feels alone and lost with no one to pull her back from her own self destruction.

And I just don't know what to do about it. 

If my mother were a reasonable person I could probably talk things out with her.  But unfortunately for both of us, she has a lot of her own demons to deal with from her own bad childhood.  So instead of being reasonable, she's completely over sensitive and paranoid.

For example...

Steven works at a car dealership and is doing really well.  He got a demo car on the first of June, a 2005 Ford Escape.  The day he got it, we took it over to my sister's to show it off.  It was late at the time, and even later by the time we got back home.  So I didn't go over to my mom's house - out of consideration that it was far too late.

She gets around on a walker, it's not like she could see the car in the dark - or even ride in it.  I figured we'd wait for another time when it was more light.

Well apparently my mother got wind of the fact we showed the car to Michelle and not to her and this is what I get: "So why don't I count enough to see Steven's new car?"

She sat down at her house and pouted for a week rather than just call me up and let me tell her why we didn't take it down there.  No, she'd much rather prefer to believe that we just all hate her and don't want anything to do with her.

So yesterday, when I lost my patience finally and told her in blunt terms that she COULD do the computer work if she just wanted to, that she didn't need me coming down there and spending a couple hours every day telling her how to do the same simple procedure over and over, she got all pissy with me and said, "So sorry I bothered you.  Goodbye." and hung up on me.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm sure Michelle and Steven think I've lost my mind that this sent me off so badly, and I have spent the better part of these last couple of days to figure out why I became so hyper sensitive over such a non issue.

Well, it's because it's not a non issue.

This is a recurring theme for my mother.

I'm tired of being made to feel guilty for her feelings.  It's not my responsibility how she takes things.  She has decided she wants to play the martyr or the victim, and no one aside from maybe God himself, will convince her to feel otherwise.

This once independent woman is now clingy and needy and trying to cash in on old debts that aren't owed to her. 

And because she's raised me to be this same self effacing martyr, I worry that feeling this way will inevitably lead to my own hendered old age where no one will want to take care of me.

And I hate it.  I hate feeling this miserable for having the gumption to say enough is enough.  I'm tired of feeling like I have to sacrifice what I feel or want at the altar of people who do not take my feelings into consideration in the least.  

I'm sorting through all these messed up emotions of anger and resentment and quite frankly... it sucks.

So being aware of all this stuff really doesn't seem to help me right now.

I long for the days where I could walk off the cliff and keep going.

I may have been as big as a house, but it didn't hurt as bad.

I don't know what to do.