(no subject)
The last week and a half has been a whirlwind of flying shitballs. I'm so exhausted, emotionally and otherwise, that I could sleep for days. I have put most of what has been happening on filters, and when writing about it publicly I can only skim across the top, so you'll have to understand why it's a little vague.
Marika is living with us again. I say 'again' because there was a point where she wasn't going to continue to live here, and as much as I suspected it was not a healthy decision, I had real hope that it was going to be different this time.
I'm so sick of Marika being nothing but collateral damage from her mother's cycles. I hope that one day she sees what this is doing to the people that love her, because right now she's so far in that she can't see what's in front of her own damn nose.
The summary of last two weeks is the two of them had some good dialogue over Facebook chats, and were apparently making real progress. This dialogue wasn't just good, it was amazingly good, and Marika was over the moon at the chance to go forward. Her mom invited her for a very sudden visit to see a play that she's written; it was extremely important to her that Marika be there.
The subject matter of the play was transparent: it was the story of a single mother and her daughter (and her idiot, neglectful father) who had the perfect relationship of sunshines and rainbows until one day an evil presence forced its way into the daughter's life and took this perfect, intelligent girl away and turned her into a swearing, angry, hurtful nothing of a monster. While the mother struggles to get her daughter back from the evil presence, unaware of what's truly happened to her, she's hurt over and over, the perpetual victim of life's cruel ways.
So. That's interesting.
Regardless, their dialogue was good. Some drama happened when her mother found a way to effectively kidnap her without her even realizing, and while we went around the bend trying to figure out where she was, her mom was "bonding" and happily keeping us running in circles. When we finally managed to get ahold of her again, she was furious with us and saying she wanted to move in with her mom because life was perfect again. She said some really disturbing things on the phone, but I know where it comes from and I understand why it happened that way... you'd do anything for your mother's love if you were that desperate. Her mother even encouraged her to quit her summer studies that she was 95% done.
So she was going to be moving out.
We tried to put a positive spin on it, even though we suspected Krazy was not as changed as she appeared, and planned a goodbye party. Marika was going to invite friends, we were having a cake, movies, pizza... the whole bit. Her mom showed up in the city two days after Marika had been dropped off, and said she had to go with her now. I don't know what she said to her, but Marika was completely torn. She wanted to stay and have the goodbye party, cut ties, and gradually leave... but this didn't fit her mother's schedule so she had to leave now. Right now.
She showed up at our house but Curtis wouldn't let her in. We tried to do it politely, and just asked her to wait outside while Marika said goodbye. I am deeply uncomfortable with her coming into my home and saying the things she does with my kids running around, but I don't have any desire to be an ass about it.
Krazy told Marika she could take all the time she needed to say goodbye. However, when five minutes elapsed and her and I were still sitting in my room crying on each other, Krazy came to the door and told Curtis that if she wasn't out in five minutes she'd "call someone". Curtis assured her we were just talking, at which point she started in on a long rant about how he was condescending her. He went to close the door on her and she started screaming that he was a "sad, pathetic little man. Just a sad little man right now" and said she'd call the cops on us.
Curtis reminded her that this was our home, and our property, and if she called the cops they would probably remove her, not us. She ranted something that wasn't clear enough to understand, and stormed off to her car.
So that put a dampener on our ability to say goodbye. Marika left in hysterics, and I spent the rest of the day wandering around in a daze. She said she'd visit but I knew that if it was this hard to get even 48 hours for a goodbye party, she'd never be able to come down that easily.
At 10pm we got a phone call from Marika, she was in hysterics, sobbing, screaming that she needed to come home. I could barely understand her, all I got was, "she lied to me" and "I need to come home. Please come and get me".
In the background I heard her mother yelling, "Stop lying! You're always lying to them!"
Marika called back that she wasn't lying, that she hadn't said anything (which is true). She got really stuck on that, unable to do anything but try and prove she wasn't lying. I talked her down and said that she hadn't said a word about what happened, we wouldn't worry about that now, and that no one has lied or could even have the opportunity to lie because we weren't interested in the story right now. All that mattered was coming to get her.
Her mother threatened to call the police on Marika, something which neither of us understand the reasons for. We were already in the car and on our way.
It's a three hour drive.
I asked her to find someone safe to be with during that time, but none of her friends were home. A friend of the family came over to stay with her instead.
We hit a horrible accident on the road and were delayed in gridlocked traffic for an hour, so we didn't get there until 2:30am. About ten minutes before we arrived I received another phone call from a much calmer Marika.
"My mom is making me call you."
"Why?"
"She wants to know why you aren't here yet. She wants to go to sleep now."
It makes my blood run cold that someone who pretended to be so desperate to see her child would say things to her like that as soon as things turned around. I'm angry that it didn't go perfectly and you didn't fit my view of how I wanted you to be, so now get out of my sight? It's never about Marika. It's never about her best interest, or her feelings, or her safety, or her comfort. Does she even think for a second about how it must feel to hear those things said? She's still just a kid, and that shit is way too much to be dealing with. I get that her mother is hurting, I know this affects both of them, but holy shit you'd think that as a grown woman you'd learn to put your child's feelings first even for a few fucking minutes.
When we arrived at the house at 2:15am in the pouring rain. We showed up at her door together and embraced her for a long time. She was shaking.
No one came out to help her. No one hugged her goodbye. No one stood in the window and watched her leave. No one waved.
We helped her pull her things out of the back of her mother's car, and left. Curtis and Marika slept in the back while I drove home. I made great time on the abandoned roads in the middle of the night, but we still didn't get in until 4:30am.
She's been home two days and is still experiencing the emotional fallout from that event. She's feeling more betrayed than she ever has before.
Her mother hasn't called, hasn't emailed her, and hasn't tried to contact her to see how she's doing or try and talk it out. But she also hasn't spent the time sitting around...
Starting last night I received harassing emails from Krazy's friends. I have no idea what it is she's told them, but they're talking about how karma will get me in the end for what I've done, that I'm selfish and have no heart, and that I'm a master manipulator and brainwasher....
I gave the one friend back a peaceful message asking if she'd like to get to know me, if it would help her feel more at ease during this time. I said I was glad Krazy had friends to support her, and that I hope she and Marika can continue to work through their problems in a healthy manner.
The friend said, "Delusional..." at which point I just gave up and blocked her.
This isn't the first time Krazy has sent people after me. I've been harassed by many of her friends, and even some of the kids she works with. Children. Teens that are 14 and 16 years old have left me messages and Facebook posts about what a horrible person I am, and what a dangerous thing I've done, and don't I care at all about Marika's welfare...
The words themselves don't bother me; I've been through far worse and I don't blame these people, they're innocent in this. What bothers me is that this whole situation has never been about Marika: it's about me.
When Marika first ran away from home last year and went missing, what was the first thing her mother did? Find out where I was and call me so she could scream at me for infecting Marika's mind and body and making her do this.
When Marika was found and settled somewhere safe and checked in to tell her mother she was okay, what did she do? Did she tell her how much she loved her? Offer to make things better? Get counseling? She told me that I had stolen her child, 'sowed the seeds of discord' in their relationship, and that I had ruined her life.
During those emails back and forth for months and months, every last one of which I saved and filed away, what was her main concern? Was it Marika's schoolwork? Her health and safety? No, it was whether or not I had been doing drugs because the only explanation for Marika's behavior was that someone had been slipping her hard drugs, and she's looking at me.
In the play she wrote "for Marika" apparently about their relationship problems, when the evil presence first finds its way into her brain and forces her to fight with her mother, the first thing it makes her say is, "Well at least they got me an ipod!" (talking of her other family and why they're better than her mother). Upon Marika's arrival here, I found an ipod on clearance for less than $50 and had it engraved with her name as a starting school gift. Marika's mother had no idea she even had it until she saw her using it one weekend when she visited, but obviously she thought it had a lot more significance than a simple starting school gift.
And now? It makes me ill to think she practically threw Marika out of her house on the day she was supposed to move in after Marika said, "I think we're moving too fast". She sat there pouting and demanding we arrive faster so we could take Marika out of her sight... and apparently spent the following day curled up on a couch in front of her friends, crying and telling some bizarre story about the horrible things I've done to her. But she couldn't care enough about it the night before to hug Marika and cuddle her for that last three hours they had together. I guess it only matters when she can be the center of attention.
What on earth has she said that makes total strangers, people I have never met in my entire life, start harassing me? I don't believe that all these people are simply stupid, or insane; people who get taken by a cult aren't stupid either. I just can't believe that after all this time and struggle, it's still not enough to get her to pay attention to the real issue. For her, this has always been about me. It's like she's declared war and Marika is merely the spoils. The more army she has fighting me, the better she feels.
Yet, no one seems to consider that Marika is a beautiful and intelligent young woman, perfectly capable of using her free will and independence. No one asks her what her side of the story is. No one calls her up and asks if she's feeling okay. No one even emails her. Because it's all about me.
Krazy has precious few years left of Marika's youth to turn this shit around before she gets old enough to not need her anymore, and then she'll lose the chance forever. If for even one fucking minute she could get past her need to blame me and actually look at fixing the problem, they might make real progress. She doesn't have to "admit" she's a bad mother, or that she's ruined someone's life, all she has to do is admit there's an issue going on between them that needs addressing. Taking steps toward healing this rift does not require there to be a "wrong" and a "right", it only needs the will to put that healing ahead of your own need to blame.
All she has to do is stop blaming me for everything that has gone wrong in her life, stop gathering a personal army of friends and school children to send after me, and start really doing something for her own fucking child.
Right now all I see is a girl who is curled in a ball crying her eyes out because she's been betrayed over and over again by someone she needs more than anyone on this planet - and that someone is looking right past her.
When I was younger I remember finding this list of funny life lessons, and I passed it onto my dad. There was one on the list that I didn't quite understand; I knew there had to be more to it than what I was reading, so I asked my father what it meant.
He said, "It's very subtle. This person has been through a lot of bad relationships in their life. I can't really explain it to you, I don't know that you'll truly understand it until you're older and have gone through it yourself."
It was, "Someone who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person".
Today I understand it.
Marika is living with us again. I say 'again' because there was a point where she wasn't going to continue to live here, and as much as I suspected it was not a healthy decision, I had real hope that it was going to be different this time.
I'm so sick of Marika being nothing but collateral damage from her mother's cycles. I hope that one day she sees what this is doing to the people that love her, because right now she's so far in that she can't see what's in front of her own damn nose.
The summary of last two weeks is the two of them had some good dialogue over Facebook chats, and were apparently making real progress. This dialogue wasn't just good, it was amazingly good, and Marika was over the moon at the chance to go forward. Her mom invited her for a very sudden visit to see a play that she's written; it was extremely important to her that Marika be there.
The subject matter of the play was transparent: it was the story of a single mother and her daughter (and her idiot, neglectful father) who had the perfect relationship of sunshines and rainbows until one day an evil presence forced its way into the daughter's life and took this perfect, intelligent girl away and turned her into a swearing, angry, hurtful nothing of a monster. While the mother struggles to get her daughter back from the evil presence, unaware of what's truly happened to her, she's hurt over and over, the perpetual victim of life's cruel ways.
So. That's interesting.
Regardless, their dialogue was good. Some drama happened when her mother found a way to effectively kidnap her without her even realizing, and while we went around the bend trying to figure out where she was, her mom was "bonding" and happily keeping us running in circles. When we finally managed to get ahold of her again, she was furious with us and saying she wanted to move in with her mom because life was perfect again. She said some really disturbing things on the phone, but I know where it comes from and I understand why it happened that way... you'd do anything for your mother's love if you were that desperate. Her mother even encouraged her to quit her summer studies that she was 95% done.
So she was going to be moving out.
We tried to put a positive spin on it, even though we suspected Krazy was not as changed as she appeared, and planned a goodbye party. Marika was going to invite friends, we were having a cake, movies, pizza... the whole bit. Her mom showed up in the city two days after Marika had been dropped off, and said she had to go with her now. I don't know what she said to her, but Marika was completely torn. She wanted to stay and have the goodbye party, cut ties, and gradually leave... but this didn't fit her mother's schedule so she had to leave now. Right now.
She showed up at our house but Curtis wouldn't let her in. We tried to do it politely, and just asked her to wait outside while Marika said goodbye. I am deeply uncomfortable with her coming into my home and saying the things she does with my kids running around, but I don't have any desire to be an ass about it.
Krazy told Marika she could take all the time she needed to say goodbye. However, when five minutes elapsed and her and I were still sitting in my room crying on each other, Krazy came to the door and told Curtis that if she wasn't out in five minutes she'd "call someone". Curtis assured her we were just talking, at which point she started in on a long rant about how he was condescending her. He went to close the door on her and she started screaming that he was a "sad, pathetic little man. Just a sad little man right now" and said she'd call the cops on us.
Curtis reminded her that this was our home, and our property, and if she called the cops they would probably remove her, not us. She ranted something that wasn't clear enough to understand, and stormed off to her car.
So that put a dampener on our ability to say goodbye. Marika left in hysterics, and I spent the rest of the day wandering around in a daze. She said she'd visit but I knew that if it was this hard to get even 48 hours for a goodbye party, she'd never be able to come down that easily.
At 10pm we got a phone call from Marika, she was in hysterics, sobbing, screaming that she needed to come home. I could barely understand her, all I got was, "she lied to me" and "I need to come home. Please come and get me".
In the background I heard her mother yelling, "Stop lying! You're always lying to them!"
Marika called back that she wasn't lying, that she hadn't said anything (which is true). She got really stuck on that, unable to do anything but try and prove she wasn't lying. I talked her down and said that she hadn't said a word about what happened, we wouldn't worry about that now, and that no one has lied or could even have the opportunity to lie because we weren't interested in the story right now. All that mattered was coming to get her.
Her mother threatened to call the police on Marika, something which neither of us understand the reasons for. We were already in the car and on our way.
It's a three hour drive.
I asked her to find someone safe to be with during that time, but none of her friends were home. A friend of the family came over to stay with her instead.
We hit a horrible accident on the road and were delayed in gridlocked traffic for an hour, so we didn't get there until 2:30am. About ten minutes before we arrived I received another phone call from a much calmer Marika.
"My mom is making me call you."
"Why?"
"She wants to know why you aren't here yet. She wants to go to sleep now."
It makes my blood run cold that someone who pretended to be so desperate to see her child would say things to her like that as soon as things turned around. I'm angry that it didn't go perfectly and you didn't fit my view of how I wanted you to be, so now get out of my sight? It's never about Marika. It's never about her best interest, or her feelings, or her safety, or her comfort. Does she even think for a second about how it must feel to hear those things said? She's still just a kid, and that shit is way too much to be dealing with. I get that her mother is hurting, I know this affects both of them, but holy shit you'd think that as a grown woman you'd learn to put your child's feelings first even for a few fucking minutes.
When we arrived at the house at 2:15am in the pouring rain. We showed up at her door together and embraced her for a long time. She was shaking.
No one came out to help her. No one hugged her goodbye. No one stood in the window and watched her leave. No one waved.
We helped her pull her things out of the back of her mother's car, and left. Curtis and Marika slept in the back while I drove home. I made great time on the abandoned roads in the middle of the night, but we still didn't get in until 4:30am.
She's been home two days and is still experiencing the emotional fallout from that event. She's feeling more betrayed than she ever has before.
Her mother hasn't called, hasn't emailed her, and hasn't tried to contact her to see how she's doing or try and talk it out. But she also hasn't spent the time sitting around...
Starting last night I received harassing emails from Krazy's friends. I have no idea what it is she's told them, but they're talking about how karma will get me in the end for what I've done, that I'm selfish and have no heart, and that I'm a master manipulator and brainwasher....
I gave the one friend back a peaceful message asking if she'd like to get to know me, if it would help her feel more at ease during this time. I said I was glad Krazy had friends to support her, and that I hope she and Marika can continue to work through their problems in a healthy manner.
The friend said, "Delusional..." at which point I just gave up and blocked her.
This isn't the first time Krazy has sent people after me. I've been harassed by many of her friends, and even some of the kids she works with. Children. Teens that are 14 and 16 years old have left me messages and Facebook posts about what a horrible person I am, and what a dangerous thing I've done, and don't I care at all about Marika's welfare...
The words themselves don't bother me; I've been through far worse and I don't blame these people, they're innocent in this. What bothers me is that this whole situation has never been about Marika: it's about me.
When Marika first ran away from home last year and went missing, what was the first thing her mother did? Find out where I was and call me so she could scream at me for infecting Marika's mind and body and making her do this.
When Marika was found and settled somewhere safe and checked in to tell her mother she was okay, what did she do? Did she tell her how much she loved her? Offer to make things better? Get counseling? She told me that I had stolen her child, 'sowed the seeds of discord' in their relationship, and that I had ruined her life.
During those emails back and forth for months and months, every last one of which I saved and filed away, what was her main concern? Was it Marika's schoolwork? Her health and safety? No, it was whether or not I had been doing drugs because the only explanation for Marika's behavior was that someone had been slipping her hard drugs, and she's looking at me.
In the play she wrote "for Marika" apparently about their relationship problems, when the evil presence first finds its way into her brain and forces her to fight with her mother, the first thing it makes her say is, "Well at least they got me an ipod!" (talking of her other family and why they're better than her mother). Upon Marika's arrival here, I found an ipod on clearance for less than $50 and had it engraved with her name as a starting school gift. Marika's mother had no idea she even had it until she saw her using it one weekend when she visited, but obviously she thought it had a lot more significance than a simple starting school gift.
And now? It makes me ill to think she practically threw Marika out of her house on the day she was supposed to move in after Marika said, "I think we're moving too fast". She sat there pouting and demanding we arrive faster so we could take Marika out of her sight... and apparently spent the following day curled up on a couch in front of her friends, crying and telling some bizarre story about the horrible things I've done to her. But she couldn't care enough about it the night before to hug Marika and cuddle her for that last three hours they had together. I guess it only matters when she can be the center of attention.
What on earth has she said that makes total strangers, people I have never met in my entire life, start harassing me? I don't believe that all these people are simply stupid, or insane; people who get taken by a cult aren't stupid either. I just can't believe that after all this time and struggle, it's still not enough to get her to pay attention to the real issue. For her, this has always been about me. It's like she's declared war and Marika is merely the spoils. The more army she has fighting me, the better she feels.
Yet, no one seems to consider that Marika is a beautiful and intelligent young woman, perfectly capable of using her free will and independence. No one asks her what her side of the story is. No one calls her up and asks if she's feeling okay. No one even emails her. Because it's all about me.
Krazy has precious few years left of Marika's youth to turn this shit around before she gets old enough to not need her anymore, and then she'll lose the chance forever. If for even one fucking minute she could get past her need to blame me and actually look at fixing the problem, they might make real progress. She doesn't have to "admit" she's a bad mother, or that she's ruined someone's life, all she has to do is admit there's an issue going on between them that needs addressing. Taking steps toward healing this rift does not require there to be a "wrong" and a "right", it only needs the will to put that healing ahead of your own need to blame.
All she has to do is stop blaming me for everything that has gone wrong in her life, stop gathering a personal army of friends and school children to send after me, and start really doing something for her own fucking child.
Right now all I see is a girl who is curled in a ball crying her eyes out because she's been betrayed over and over again by someone she needs more than anyone on this planet - and that someone is looking right past her.
When I was younger I remember finding this list of funny life lessons, and I passed it onto my dad. There was one on the list that I didn't quite understand; I knew there had to be more to it than what I was reading, so I asked my father what it meant.
He said, "It's very subtle. This person has been through a lot of bad relationships in their life. I can't really explain it to you, I don't know that you'll truly understand it until you're older and have gone through it yourself."
It was, "Someone who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person".
Today I understand it.