I am Not a Swiss Cheese Person

So… this is about to get really lame. Stop reading if you’re tired of hearing about my stupid momma drama. I’m hoping that this won’t just be another of the millions of poor me, I cut my self and the sadness pours out of me, LJ-style pity-fests, so here goes nothing.
Monday my mom called me, and if you know me, you know that I haven’t really talked with her since May of 07. After years of trying to be a good daughter and have loving compassion for her as a child of god despite her pill addiction and various other crippling, untreated personality disorders I decided that the only way to be a good daughter to her while still preserving my self respect was to take a break from her. Well, she never really understood the meaning of the word “no,” so she continues to call me every so often, much to my distress. While this will probably sound crazy to all you normal people out there, it makes very specific sense to me and probably will to you if you are lucky enough to have a chronically lying, manipulative addict for a mother like myself (and if you do, God bless you and thank you for not shooting yourself in the head).
Anyway, I recently moved from Anaheim (see Seven Years with Good Rent) to Hawthorne-surprisingly without a rent raise BTW-to be closer to work. I chose not to tell her I was moving, and not to tell her when I moved and not to give her my new address. Not so much because I mind her having these things, but really because I still don’t want to talk to her, and I see no need for her to have this information. So much for that.
So on Monday, I get a message from her that her crazy money hungry grifter of a fake Hindu holy man is coming to Hawthorne “I believe that’s the town you moved to” and would I like to come listen to this wack-job promise me eternal whatever the fuck I want for the low low price of $500 + every paycheck I’ll earn after he ropes me in + my estate after I die, especially if I am rich and old. Every normal person who’s reading this is probably just thinking ‘she’s in a cult, it’s what they do.’ First, let me just say: aren’t cult leaders supposed to discourage their members from family contact? The one good thing about my mother being in a cult is that this fuck could keep her locked up in his fake ashram and far away from me. I’ll bet he knows she’s insane and has her calling me in the hopes that I’ll hire a team of anti-cult activists in a van to kidnap her and take her off his hands. No deal swami gimmi monie, no fucking deal at all.
Back to the facts. The facts which are this: The only important part of that message is the part where she lets me know that she knows what city I live in despite the fact that I did not tell her this thing. Remember when I said that I really don’t mind her having my address? I kind of don’t, but now I actually do, because she can’t just have my address and take solace in the fact that someone in this family is still dumb enough to communicate with her tongue chewing, toxic, carcass (Grandma, I’m looking at you-you’re a sweet old lady, but you’re letting the wolf in). She has to call me and lie through her teeth about something which she knows I care nothing for, all the while trusting that her secret mom-code will worm it’s way out of the phone speaker and into my brain like a fungus of anger and guilt. It totally worked.
So now I’m obsessed with the concept of her baffling ability to get under my skin a full year and a half after I decided that the door was closed, that the deal was done, and that she wasn’t allowed inside my fucking head again. She’s back like a cockroach, shitting and reproducing behind the stove of my subconscious, eating away at my mental property value shit by shit. Why do I do this?! Why is it that I absolutely lack the ability to be corporeal when faced with the succubus that is my mother and she’s not even here?
A co-worker had to point out to me that I didn’t have to listen to her voicemail. To be honest, it never occurred to me not to. Here I just opened the door and said “please do come in, vampire queen, tear my heart out and eat it, shit it out and jam it back into my gaping, bloody chest wound. Can I take your coat?” What is so important that this woman has to say to me that I can’t hear it from somebody else faster and more accurately?
I don’t know what’s worse, the idea that this is the relationship that I get to have with my mother who used to be a real person, and not this cliche sack of nastiness, or the fact that I’ve done this to myself. I hold the only key into my mind and heart and I give it to her every fucking time. I don’t have to listen to a word she has to say. If there is anyone alive in this world who has lost the ability to command my attention, it should be her, and yet, I waste my time thinking about her intent, her process, her cruel and selfish actions. Why do I do it, why do I open the door like this? I guess I really have to know that every time she’s going to fuck with my head, I have to test the oven to see if it’s still hot, every single time.
The good thing that comes out of this for me is that next time I’ll be less likely to listen to the message, and the next time I’ll be even less likely than that. I think I just have to know a thing a hundred percent. I have to be sure that the mom that I knew from when she was sober; the good, loving woman that I trusted and cared about, who I learned from and looked to for guidance and comfort is completely dead. And no matter if I answer the phone or don’t, if I listen to a thousand messages from her or I never hear from her again, that trust is broken. I guess sometimes it’s better for me to check the message, just to be sure than to never check the message and think that I could have seen the person I loved again, if only for a little bit. But the truth is that there’s no romantic come-back. There were only 9 years of her life where she wasn’t a miserable cunt and just because I was there for them doesn’t mean anything now. I have a life that I cherish, that I built from practically nothing, and I can’t let the shadow of her addiction, of her depression and desperation cast itself over what I’ve worked so hard to carve out for myself in an otherwise dark and uncaring world. It’s sad that she’s such a mess, but I can’t fall apart because of it
If you managed to slog through all that I hope it was entertaining enough. I tried to make it at least a little bit funny in the middle even if it got pretty sad at the end.

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