Well, an interesting week. The good news is, I have 1/3 of the sewing for the wedding done and our planning packet came in. We're all but ready to go. I have everything packed but thehair products, becauseI can't get rid of those until the day we leave, for obvious reasons. (I have backup toothbrushes, shampoo, etc...) The bad news is I've had a falling out with my mother. A pretty permanent one, it looks like. I'm usually pretty coy about my mom and Punk (my 26 year old little brother) They live together, and its not a very healthly relationship. Whether its a result of being spoiled as a child, a bad attitude, actual psychological problems or the fact he's been the only(I hate using this word) stable male in my mother's life, Punk has a very bad habit of treating my mom more like he's her husband than her son. He runs off all her friends, especially the male ones, and he keeps tabs on her wherever she is. I've seen her take a call from him in my house and tell him she was at the store, as if there was something wrong with saying "I'm spending time with your sister" Punk doesnt have a rela job, he works maybe 10 hours a week at a local skate park, so my mom funds all of his extracurricular activities, including his drinking and drug habits. She's not too financially saavy, (coming from me that's terrible to say too) and as a result she's blown through a lot of her money. She's always broke, even though she makes three times what I do. My Gran loaned her about $3000 this last spring and instead of paying her bills it went somewhere else (I suspect to punk) and she got evicted from her rental house and has all sorts of problems.
Anyway, Punk and mom have had all sorts of issues. When I was growing up I tried really hard to ignore the turbulence of their relationship the same way I ignored my mom's abusive husbands. I didn't really think there was anything I could do about it. As an adult, I know better.
Last week mom and Punk had a pretty big fight, and I heard about it through my grandmother. Apparently my mom went to stay with her when Punk threw her out of the house. There was a physical altercation involved, and apparently it was a pretty bad one. I knew that in the past this had happened before, but apparently this time it was really awful. I won't give you all the gory details. Suffice to say my mom was afraid to go home and my brother threatened my Grandmother and (apparently, by proxy) me if we tried to get involved. My grandmother said he told her he would "beat her ass" charming, right?
For me, it was the last straw. I don't do well with threats. I also don't do well with Punk hitting my mom. Its not okay with me. Monday i called her and offered to find her a safe place to stay, or a way to help her prosecute him, or get him out of the house. Anything to separate them.
My mom didn't take the offer very well. She pretty well told me it was none of my damn business and I should stay out of it. I told her I'd thought I'd stayed out of it for too long. I also told her sshe needed to make a choice about her safety, my grandmother's safety and mine as well. She told me she wasn't going to do anything about it, and if I did, she would deny up one side and down the other he had ever laid hands on her. I told her she had three options, as far s I was concerned. 1) do something about this herself 2) let me do somethign about it and keep her safe or 3) tell me that making my brother happy was more important than her or my grandmother's safety and she didn't want to talk to me anymore, because I can't keep dealing with this kind of personal turbulence.
My mom told me to go to hell and choose option 3. I'm trying as best I can to cope with it.
I wouldn't be nearly so angry except two days later my brother and my grandmother call me on behalf of my mother, who is in jail. Apparently she had written some bad checks recently (she hasn't had a bank account in almost a year, so I'm not sure what she was thinking) and when she got pulled over for having expired tags on her vehicle she got arrested because there was a warrant for her bad checks. They wanted me to post her $1000 bail. It had to be paid in cash. I told them I didn't have that kind of money and they informed me mom knew I had at least half that amount put away for the honeymoon and probably a little more for the wedding.
Is it wrong of me to be angry whe wanted me to give her my honeymoon and wedding money to bail her out after she had just told me to go to hell and stay out of her life? Well, I was. And I didn't give them the money either. Not very kind, maybe, but that's how I felt. My grandmother got the money, in case you're curious, and she's out. For now.
I'm at an impasse. My grandmother came over thursday crying to me about how I had no right to throw stones at my mother for being in trouble with money and how she wished she was dead because of all the faily drama. She told me I would ruin Christmas because we couldn't all be together and I wasn't thinking of the family and how would everyone else think it looked? I was honest with her. I told her I've been dealing with this stress all my life, and I think its time for me to let them go. There isn't anything else I can do to help my mom or get through to my brother. As for the rest of the family, they've been looking the other way all this time, and I don't feel like its right. I waited to long to say something, honestly, and I feel better having finally said something. I think I did the right thing.
Try as I might, I'm having a hard time sleeping. I've had nightmares about my mother every night this week, and they are becoming increasingly violent and agitated. Whether you believe this is me trying to deal with the situation subconciously (I don't) or whether you think this is my moms's way of letting me know how angry she is (I do, I've alwas been connected to my family this way) its hugely unsettling.
This would be a great time for some feedback. I did the right thing? I think I did. Kitten thinks I did, and all of my close friends think this wasa step that needed to be taken a long time ago. Still, te built in family guilt is after me. I love my mom. I love punk. But I don't like them. And I don;t like the way I feel when I deal with them.
AG/xx
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2 comments:
There comes a point in every adult life where you have to make difficult decisions, even when it comes to those you love.
If you morally can not accept the things that are taken place with your mother/brother and you don't condone it and your decision is to not partake in it's insanity. You have that right to walk away. Without guilt. You can make conscience decisions as can they.
You are about to embark on your journey. Move forward, don't look back.
If what you write is true and you did all those things, then you have done all that you can with the exception of calling the police. If you think you must, then do that. Obviously your mother isn't not going to talk to you, she had you called for bail money.
A mother should/would never turn her back on her kids. If she does, she's a turd.
Good Luck.
God, sorry I'm sooo late on this post. It probably won't mean anything now, but you absolutely did the right thing. Moreover, it wasn't just the right thing for you, but for your family as well. You don't want to enable this unhealthy behavior anymore. They're going to do what they're going to do, and you don't need to be a part of it.
Frankly I'm a bit furious on your behalf.
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