I wish I could mainline the stuff.

Much Sturm und Drang today. This story will be significant to those who know me in my personal life (especially my high school/college friends), and practically no one else. So feel free to skip this entry. I talked to my aunt earlier in the day. She was a little concerned about my mom, who was, she said, depressed. I finally caught up with my mother five and a half hours later, and she wasn't any such thing: she was livid at certain family members, and in target acquisition mode, ready to jump down my throat or get mad at my aunt for even having spoken to me. As we spoke I became more and more careful about what I said to her, not wanting to get her mad at my aunt or at me.

This made her mad. Of course. "Don't beat around the bush with me," she raged.

I finally let loose and yelled, and told her she should be happy to have people concerned about her, and she could talk to me or not talk to me, but I wasn't going to be treated badly.

We agreed it wasn't the right time to talk, and hung up. I called her back, to get her assurance that she wouldn't get mad at my aunt for having called me in the first place. At first she agreed, and then she accused me of giving her orders.

I hung up the phone and sobbed. Suddenly, I was 12 years again, living alone with a rageaholic who cannot be reasoned with and cannot be pleased. It's been years since the last of her "episodes," and I guess I harbored hopes that she might never get like this again. I must always remember that she will. I must try to be patient, and detach from her.

I must remember that I am not her, and there's no destiny: my fear, of course, is that because I lived with it (or because of genetics--take your pick) I'll do this to my own daughter or son. Which is nonsense, because one of the reasons I picked Attila the Hub as a spouse is that he is yin to my yang, steady as a rock and an anchor in the sea of any emotional turbulence. Mine or his. I don't intend to lose my temper very often, but if and when I do he'll be there for the child. And I choose not to play dirty: I see it in my relationships with other people. I am capable of a degree of control my mother doesn't exercise, dammit.

I'm not her. Much as my mind trys to play games with it. ("The very fact that you have such an emotional reaction shows how similar you are." This is a lie I tell myself. On reflection, it's perfectly natural that when you are close to someone, and you are concerned about them, and they take this concern and spit it back out to you, your feelings will be hurt.)

What I wish is that emotional cancers were like physical ones, and could be indentified. I wish the abnormal parts could somehow be identified, and cut out. Instead, I do emotional chemo: endlessly working Twelve Step programs in the hope that it will be different in the future. That I'll be whole someday. That the damage will heal.

I have to remember the spiral image: sometimes we go through things that remind us of other things we've experienced, and think "I'm regressing!" Or: "I'm stuck." Not so. Sometimes we're on a whole new level, but in a similar place, handling things in a different way. Still going up. Like walking up into the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

I have no control over anyone, including the volatile woman who raised me into the bundle of passion and reason I am. I do have control over myself. I'll stop yelling at her, and I'll learn to let the rest of it go. Keep my side of the street cleaner, and protect my feelings more.

Acceptance is key. But it's the hardest thing.

Posted by: Attila at 07:49 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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