On Sickening Realizations
Mom,
Yesterday was a blessing. I stand in utter gratitude for what you showed me without any doubts or ambiguities to cloud my judgement. I am often in a place where precarious conclusions must be drawn in order to keep balance, keep some semblance of peace, and keep myself in an ability to sustain. You opened your mouth yesterday and removed all doubt that could have existed in my mind, like a cool breeze on an early fall day- it blew back the clouds to show a dazzling blue sky, let the sun beat down and bathe the landscape in sudden understanding.
There is no misunderstanding in my mind, and hasn't been for some time, about a few things. Your mental and emotional abilities are hampered, this I have known from forever. Where you are able to reach out, many times the light is refracted, bent around the edges in order to creep around the side and prick me.
There are a few things that I am beginning to come to some wonderful, albeit unwanted, conclusions about. I'm not even sure that I can articulate all of them, since they have stricken me in a most intimate place and as often the case, that means there aren't words as yet. But since I feel it bubbling inside of me with no place to go, I will write down what I can given my capacities right at this moment, and leave the rest for another entry or another conversation.
Yesterday, you pushed. It was not just that; you removed your mask. Beautifully, artfully, strongly, like this was always your plan, you invited me in under the pretense of 'hanging out'. But first, you threw me off by not following through with something I asked of you. I can't imagine that you did this on purpose or as part of your plan, so I'll chalk that up to serendipity and an attempt from the universe to give me a sort of prelude- a lovely serenade of doubt and disagreement. This acted to give me the small gift of evidence, a totally innocuous thing on your part but as if it were a chapter in a book, it read to me of glorious understanding of the nature of who you are. I could not deny it. I could not brush it off, and the way you handled it afterward was so much more- hallelujah!- so much more and did so much more to give me an intimate, even energetic understanding of how you operate. Even to me, who I believe you love and trust and are devoted to above anyone else on this earth, maybe even yourself. You let me down in a confusing and frustrating way, in a way that, if it were any person I consider to be capable as I feel you are not, would have alarmed me and deeply troubled me. And it did, even to you, whom I know are not capable. It was such a small thing, bringing me the cart. It was such a small thing, how you yelled and I didn't hear you, and you left the cart halfway up the sidewalk and went inside. It was such a small thing, how I didn't see it and so waited for you, and how you did not emerge again to try and find me until after I parked, going in and back out again twice more, to finally take the cart. It was small, so small, how I then walked up to get it and found it gone, and how half way back to my car I heard you yell, and bring it a little farther out, and hand it off. But does it speak volumes!
And inside, how you had laughingly, sheepishly, like a child relayed the information to Genie behind the desk so that maybe it would alleviate my irritation. Genie then trying to make small talk, telling me to 'take the band aid' of chocolate, me refusing, and you saying, "She doesn't want it, she just wants to be mad." Haha. And does that not only speak volumes about you, or history of how you've dealt with my pain, and your behavior, but also how I am triggered, how hard, and what I need from those around me when I am? A beautiful, perfect, prime realization there.
I hesitantly had decided to trust you with a real-world thing, relying on you like any other person, treating you like any other person in that moment. I had been shown that you are not any other person, that your needs are special. And it was not because you were physically unable to perform the task, but something in your brain and something in your emotions made you act literally like a child. Going almost far enough, far enough to say that you tried, far enough to tell me you weren't trying to dick me around. To give up and say "well what do you want from me, it was cold and you see what I'm wearing". And you made excuses. And you performed for Genie. To make me feel small, although this was not the aim it certainly wasn't enough of a thought to consider how I would feel. Because you want so BADLY, so DEEPLY, with such UTTER ABANDON, to have SOME SEMBLANCE of normalcy, to feel like these things don't happen because of your issues. You normalize the situation as much as you can, and you just cannot see how that makes it worse- turns it from an irritating situation into an abuse of my love and understanding.
Finally, back in the apartment, you told me you heard me. You talked and talked, you chattered, talked over me a little, like you do when you're scared. Like you do when you're happy. Like you do when you're excited. Like you do when you're having a bad day or a good day. Like you do.
I couldn't let it go, and to me in the moment consciously it was just about the cart. But really it was all of those things. And my sense that you didn't understand that it was unacceptable to treat me like that, that you really did not get how seriously I felt about it. It's not that you didn't care, because you did. But consideration of my feeilngs isn't your strong suit. More on that coming up.
The cat litter was overwhelmingly dirty. I wanted to change it for you. I had also brought stuff to make lip balm, I wanted to put some in the girls' stockings for Christmas. But I started to feel tired as I entered and navigated the apartment. You corralled me into the computer room, ended up sat down, told me you had made lip balm but if I wanted to do it then I could. You told me I could take some of yours, missing that I wanted to do an activity together. I really think in that instance, I must take responsibility for putting too much hope on you being able to do something with me because I wanted it. You had no interest.
We talked about your troubles. We talked about your triumphs. You told me you wanted me to watch a video you had asked if I wanted to watch with you before, me telling you I would give it a try. I was already feeling exhausted, and dreaded the thought of having to navigate another Jesus moment with you, and I should have said no. I should have had the wherewithall to understand my own boundaries. But I didn't, I wanted to give you what you wanted. I asked if you wanted me to change the cat litter first and you said no. So we sat back and started to watch.
The movie was about the apocolypse. You told me it was not, that it was about prophecy and how a skeptic picked the Bible apart and came to understand it as truth. We stopped and started a few times, me telling you it was apocolyptic and you saying no it wasn't, and then telling me a bunch of apocolyptic things that you believed. Here, I was hoping you would honor the boundary instead of me always having to enforce it. I was hoping you would stop, and say you were sorry, and tell me I was right, and we could do something else. But you didn't. It was more important to you, no matter what I said about not being able to handle it, that you share something that you care about so much with me. It was more important than not hurting me. It was more important to you than loving me. It was more important to you than earning my trust. And with that, my trust was perfectly, dazzlingly, explosively shattered. I saw the shards of it glittering as it crescendoed on the floor, singing pain all the way down. It poured like a waterfall, it hit the surface of my base, it tinkled on the slick expanse, sharp, and cut me there. And I wept. I was so tired. You had made a comment because I looked like I was going to fall asleep, that you weren't going to play the movie if I wasn't even going to stay awake. That wasn't me sleeping, mom. It was me shutting down. Shame on you for not knowing, even though how could you know, and even still, I had plead with you, I had articulated, I had expressed that this was not something I could handle. Please don't make me watch it if it is end times stuff. And you told me it wasn't, and I trusted you, and you betrayed that.
After, I gathered myself and told you what I knew about how upset I was. At first it was because it's not true. And that's true, but that's not all, that's just the most immediate. Then it was that it was end times information, and that was true. But then I came to the cherry on top of the realizations, even the big one that followed: I didn't care about the movie. I don't care about your religion. I don't care if it's true or not true. It's not that. It's that it was hurting me and you didn't stop.
Your response? "Are you sure it's me? Maybe the Holy Spirit is making you feel bad because you're rejecting Holy Scripture."
I sat stunned in silence. All of my hard work on trust and excavating this relationship had lead up to this moment in time, this suspended, shining moment. And I claimed my prize proudly.
"Oh my God," I said, "I am so....grateful. Now I know why it has been so hard to trust myself. I've had this my whole life." A silence. "And I love you, and I have to leave."
I gathered up my growing, fledgeling dignity like a small baby, and my other things, and I hugged you and told you I loved you again, and I left.
I was conflicted all evening. And this morning too. Was I right to watch it in the first place? The things I was saying about it, was that fair (I told you many times during the hour or two I was at your apartment that I was irritated, that I did not care about your views and was watching it to hear you out, that it was awful)? Was I treating you fairly? All of my doubt, my vascillation, my weighing, was about you and how you felt. And it wasn't because, for ONCE, for ONE TIME IN MY LIFE, it wasn't because I doubted how I felt. I didn't know how to say what I felt, but I didn't doubt it. I just want to do right by you, I want to do this right. And I don't want to be mad at you because I know you're trying so hard, and I know you have always tried so hard, and you didn't have the benefit of the support I had growing up.
But you made choices. Just like you made choices yesterday. You chose yesterday to alienate me, to slap me right in the face. To watch me cry in front of you, sob, break down, and then tell me I was doing something bad and I should feel bad. And then you had the audacity to remove responsibility from yourself and give it to God. The very nerve.
And you know, if I didn't have the experience I have with you, I would most likely have bought that. I let you in so much (and this is my fault) that I allow what you say to let me doubt myself. I have, my whole life, taken things like "you don't love me, or if you do you have a funny way of showing it" when I had done nothing wrong, and let them eat me right up. Things that you twisted into words of love, things that really asked me to put myself on a cross and rip my insides out, things that burned, things that planted seeds of ugliness in me. Details about my father that could or could not be true. You made me feel responsible for the things you said and did, because of the way you twisted words. You've done this my whole, entire life.
And I'm done with it. I'm going to tell you this once, because I just do not have the energy to do more than that: you respect my boundaries, and you do it now. You have no right to put your excitement, desire for closeness, or your fear of life ahead of my vulnerability or emotions. How very, completely, utterly dare you. This is not just about yesterday, this is our whole history. No, you cannot have changed. No, you cannot cut yourself from your history with the scissors of Jesus. I will deal with all I know of you, and I will not excuse it on the grounds of the fact that you so desperately want to be different. Guess what makes you different? Acting differently. You did not act differently yesterday, you hurt me deeply and told me it was my fault. That's just not something I can be around.
I still, after all this time, after all the proof I've been given, cannot believe I have to tell you this. And I'm not telling you for you. I know you don't understand, it's another gift I got yesterday- you will never understand. You never have. You just can't. And that's ok.
But now I know for sure there are people in this world who will get it. Who can go there with me, who will not betray my trust, and who are not so broken by their own lives that they cannot help but spread that disease like breath. Like vapor. People who will blossom under my love, who will expand my love and keep it soft, who will never and would never put their own desires and false safeties ahead of my real safety. I'm not making commentary on your religion here, I'm talking about the way you treat me. It's unacceptable.
And I have to apologize, for the past, for the present, for the futre. I'm trying to navigate where you are capable and where you are not, and sometimes that means I will hold you accountable where it's impossible for you to measure up. I'm truly sorry for that. Mental illness is tragic that way. I'll keep trying.
I'm not going anywhere. I don't know what else this means for our relationship other than that, but I'm pretty confident in that conclusion so far. For one, I know you need me. I turn this over and over in my head, trying to decide if that's a shitty reason for me to stay or if it's a good one. The fact remains that it simply is, and even though I know you could exist just fine without me, honestly you needing me for things like grocery shopping and doing the dishes is a relief. It gives me something to do instead of always navigating our strained, exhausting, and often horrible conversations. It allows for moments of grace- watching you make soap, petting your cats, sharing that I used to use spaghetti jars as glasses too when I lived alone and how much more sense does that make then buying real glasses?! Those sorts of things, rare jewels, precious pieces of my dream of you and I. I know I spend a bit of time in castles in the sky when it comes to us, and our relationship may suffer for it. Forgive me as I come to earth. I love you so. I always will.
Yesterday was a blessing. I stand in utter gratitude for what you showed me without any doubts or ambiguities to cloud my judgement. I am often in a place where precarious conclusions must be drawn in order to keep balance, keep some semblance of peace, and keep myself in an ability to sustain. You opened your mouth yesterday and removed all doubt that could have existed in my mind, like a cool breeze on an early fall day- it blew back the clouds to show a dazzling blue sky, let the sun beat down and bathe the landscape in sudden understanding.
There is no misunderstanding in my mind, and hasn't been for some time, about a few things. Your mental and emotional abilities are hampered, this I have known from forever. Where you are able to reach out, many times the light is refracted, bent around the edges in order to creep around the side and prick me.
There are a few things that I am beginning to come to some wonderful, albeit unwanted, conclusions about. I'm not even sure that I can articulate all of them, since they have stricken me in a most intimate place and as often the case, that means there aren't words as yet. But since I feel it bubbling inside of me with no place to go, I will write down what I can given my capacities right at this moment, and leave the rest for another entry or another conversation.
Yesterday, you pushed. It was not just that; you removed your mask. Beautifully, artfully, strongly, like this was always your plan, you invited me in under the pretense of 'hanging out'. But first, you threw me off by not following through with something I asked of you. I can't imagine that you did this on purpose or as part of your plan, so I'll chalk that up to serendipity and an attempt from the universe to give me a sort of prelude- a lovely serenade of doubt and disagreement. This acted to give me the small gift of evidence, a totally innocuous thing on your part but as if it were a chapter in a book, it read to me of glorious understanding of the nature of who you are. I could not deny it. I could not brush it off, and the way you handled it afterward was so much more- hallelujah!- so much more and did so much more to give me an intimate, even energetic understanding of how you operate. Even to me, who I believe you love and trust and are devoted to above anyone else on this earth, maybe even yourself. You let me down in a confusing and frustrating way, in a way that, if it were any person I consider to be capable as I feel you are not, would have alarmed me and deeply troubled me. And it did, even to you, whom I know are not capable. It was such a small thing, bringing me the cart. It was such a small thing, how you yelled and I didn't hear you, and you left the cart halfway up the sidewalk and went inside. It was such a small thing, how I didn't see it and so waited for you, and how you did not emerge again to try and find me until after I parked, going in and back out again twice more, to finally take the cart. It was small, so small, how I then walked up to get it and found it gone, and how half way back to my car I heard you yell, and bring it a little farther out, and hand it off. But does it speak volumes!
And inside, how you had laughingly, sheepishly, like a child relayed the information to Genie behind the desk so that maybe it would alleviate my irritation. Genie then trying to make small talk, telling me to 'take the band aid' of chocolate, me refusing, and you saying, "She doesn't want it, she just wants to be mad." Haha. And does that not only speak volumes about you, or history of how you've dealt with my pain, and your behavior, but also how I am triggered, how hard, and what I need from those around me when I am? A beautiful, perfect, prime realization there.
I hesitantly had decided to trust you with a real-world thing, relying on you like any other person, treating you like any other person in that moment. I had been shown that you are not any other person, that your needs are special. And it was not because you were physically unable to perform the task, but something in your brain and something in your emotions made you act literally like a child. Going almost far enough, far enough to say that you tried, far enough to tell me you weren't trying to dick me around. To give up and say "well what do you want from me, it was cold and you see what I'm wearing". And you made excuses. And you performed for Genie. To make me feel small, although this was not the aim it certainly wasn't enough of a thought to consider how I would feel. Because you want so BADLY, so DEEPLY, with such UTTER ABANDON, to have SOME SEMBLANCE of normalcy, to feel like these things don't happen because of your issues. You normalize the situation as much as you can, and you just cannot see how that makes it worse- turns it from an irritating situation into an abuse of my love and understanding.
Finally, back in the apartment, you told me you heard me. You talked and talked, you chattered, talked over me a little, like you do when you're scared. Like you do when you're happy. Like you do when you're excited. Like you do when you're having a bad day or a good day. Like you do.
I couldn't let it go, and to me in the moment consciously it was just about the cart. But really it was all of those things. And my sense that you didn't understand that it was unacceptable to treat me like that, that you really did not get how seriously I felt about it. It's not that you didn't care, because you did. But consideration of my feeilngs isn't your strong suit. More on that coming up.
The cat litter was overwhelmingly dirty. I wanted to change it for you. I had also brought stuff to make lip balm, I wanted to put some in the girls' stockings for Christmas. But I started to feel tired as I entered and navigated the apartment. You corralled me into the computer room, ended up sat down, told me you had made lip balm but if I wanted to do it then I could. You told me I could take some of yours, missing that I wanted to do an activity together. I really think in that instance, I must take responsibility for putting too much hope on you being able to do something with me because I wanted it. You had no interest.
We talked about your troubles. We talked about your triumphs. You told me you wanted me to watch a video you had asked if I wanted to watch with you before, me telling you I would give it a try. I was already feeling exhausted, and dreaded the thought of having to navigate another Jesus moment with you, and I should have said no. I should have had the wherewithall to understand my own boundaries. But I didn't, I wanted to give you what you wanted. I asked if you wanted me to change the cat litter first and you said no. So we sat back and started to watch.
The movie was about the apocolypse. You told me it was not, that it was about prophecy and how a skeptic picked the Bible apart and came to understand it as truth. We stopped and started a few times, me telling you it was apocolyptic and you saying no it wasn't, and then telling me a bunch of apocolyptic things that you believed. Here, I was hoping you would honor the boundary instead of me always having to enforce it. I was hoping you would stop, and say you were sorry, and tell me I was right, and we could do something else. But you didn't. It was more important to you, no matter what I said about not being able to handle it, that you share something that you care about so much with me. It was more important than not hurting me. It was more important to you than loving me. It was more important to you than earning my trust. And with that, my trust was perfectly, dazzlingly, explosively shattered. I saw the shards of it glittering as it crescendoed on the floor, singing pain all the way down. It poured like a waterfall, it hit the surface of my base, it tinkled on the slick expanse, sharp, and cut me there. And I wept. I was so tired. You had made a comment because I looked like I was going to fall asleep, that you weren't going to play the movie if I wasn't even going to stay awake. That wasn't me sleeping, mom. It was me shutting down. Shame on you for not knowing, even though how could you know, and even still, I had plead with you, I had articulated, I had expressed that this was not something I could handle. Please don't make me watch it if it is end times stuff. And you told me it wasn't, and I trusted you, and you betrayed that.
After, I gathered myself and told you what I knew about how upset I was. At first it was because it's not true. And that's true, but that's not all, that's just the most immediate. Then it was that it was end times information, and that was true. But then I came to the cherry on top of the realizations, even the big one that followed: I didn't care about the movie. I don't care about your religion. I don't care if it's true or not true. It's not that. It's that it was hurting me and you didn't stop.
Your response? "Are you sure it's me? Maybe the Holy Spirit is making you feel bad because you're rejecting Holy Scripture."
I sat stunned in silence. All of my hard work on trust and excavating this relationship had lead up to this moment in time, this suspended, shining moment. And I claimed my prize proudly.
"Oh my God," I said, "I am so....grateful. Now I know why it has been so hard to trust myself. I've had this my whole life." A silence. "And I love you, and I have to leave."
I gathered up my growing, fledgeling dignity like a small baby, and my other things, and I hugged you and told you I loved you again, and I left.
I was conflicted all evening. And this morning too. Was I right to watch it in the first place? The things I was saying about it, was that fair (I told you many times during the hour or two I was at your apartment that I was irritated, that I did not care about your views and was watching it to hear you out, that it was awful)? Was I treating you fairly? All of my doubt, my vascillation, my weighing, was about you and how you felt. And it wasn't because, for ONCE, for ONE TIME IN MY LIFE, it wasn't because I doubted how I felt. I didn't know how to say what I felt, but I didn't doubt it. I just want to do right by you, I want to do this right. And I don't want to be mad at you because I know you're trying so hard, and I know you have always tried so hard, and you didn't have the benefit of the support I had growing up.
But you made choices. Just like you made choices yesterday. You chose yesterday to alienate me, to slap me right in the face. To watch me cry in front of you, sob, break down, and then tell me I was doing something bad and I should feel bad. And then you had the audacity to remove responsibility from yourself and give it to God. The very nerve.
And you know, if I didn't have the experience I have with you, I would most likely have bought that. I let you in so much (and this is my fault) that I allow what you say to let me doubt myself. I have, my whole life, taken things like "you don't love me, or if you do you have a funny way of showing it" when I had done nothing wrong, and let them eat me right up. Things that you twisted into words of love, things that really asked me to put myself on a cross and rip my insides out, things that burned, things that planted seeds of ugliness in me. Details about my father that could or could not be true. You made me feel responsible for the things you said and did, because of the way you twisted words. You've done this my whole, entire life.
And I'm done with it. I'm going to tell you this once, because I just do not have the energy to do more than that: you respect my boundaries, and you do it now. You have no right to put your excitement, desire for closeness, or your fear of life ahead of my vulnerability or emotions. How very, completely, utterly dare you. This is not just about yesterday, this is our whole history. No, you cannot have changed. No, you cannot cut yourself from your history with the scissors of Jesus. I will deal with all I know of you, and I will not excuse it on the grounds of the fact that you so desperately want to be different. Guess what makes you different? Acting differently. You did not act differently yesterday, you hurt me deeply and told me it was my fault. That's just not something I can be around.
I still, after all this time, after all the proof I've been given, cannot believe I have to tell you this. And I'm not telling you for you. I know you don't understand, it's another gift I got yesterday- you will never understand. You never have. You just can't. And that's ok.
But now I know for sure there are people in this world who will get it. Who can go there with me, who will not betray my trust, and who are not so broken by their own lives that they cannot help but spread that disease like breath. Like vapor. People who will blossom under my love, who will expand my love and keep it soft, who will never and would never put their own desires and false safeties ahead of my real safety. I'm not making commentary on your religion here, I'm talking about the way you treat me. It's unacceptable.
And I have to apologize, for the past, for the present, for the futre. I'm trying to navigate where you are capable and where you are not, and sometimes that means I will hold you accountable where it's impossible for you to measure up. I'm truly sorry for that. Mental illness is tragic that way. I'll keep trying.
I'm not going anywhere. I don't know what else this means for our relationship other than that, but I'm pretty confident in that conclusion so far. For one, I know you need me. I turn this over and over in my head, trying to decide if that's a shitty reason for me to stay or if it's a good one. The fact remains that it simply is, and even though I know you could exist just fine without me, honestly you needing me for things like grocery shopping and doing the dishes is a relief. It gives me something to do instead of always navigating our strained, exhausting, and often horrible conversations. It allows for moments of grace- watching you make soap, petting your cats, sharing that I used to use spaghetti jars as glasses too when I lived alone and how much more sense does that make then buying real glasses?! Those sorts of things, rare jewels, precious pieces of my dream of you and I. I know I spend a bit of time in castles in the sky when it comes to us, and our relationship may suffer for it. Forgive me as I come to earth. I love you so. I always will.