Category Archives: Princess MeMeMe

I haven’t spo­ken to my mother since the day before Easter.  The story doesn’t need to be rehashed at this point.  Suf­fice it to say, that in the midst of a con­ver­sa­tion in which I was try­ing to con­vince her that two hos­pi­tal­iz­able manic episodes in two years meant she should really take bet­ter care of her­self, and that she should lis­ten to her kids when we rec­om­mend courses of action, she told me I had no idea what it meant to be depressed, and to suffer.

I wasn’t angry at her for say­ing it– she was com­ing down, still, from a manic episode, and couldn’t be held fully respon­si­ble for her words.  But I was heart­bro­ken, because it brought home to me that her under­ly­ing nar­ci­sissm is so strong that she would likely refuse to fully accept her bipo­lar (1) ill­ness, and refuse to take all the med­ica­tion, ther­a­peu­tic and other steps nec­es­sary to assure that her ill­ness was (more) under con­trol– because doing so would mean hav­ing to admit in the first place that there was some­thing wrong with her.  She couldn’t focus on any­thing beyond her con­cep­tion of self, and that nec­es­sar­ily impairs (fatally impairs?) her abil­ity to man­age the over­ly­ing ill­ness.  And that?  It’s just bad for my own men­tal health, so bad it’s almost like I’m ana­phy­lac­tic aller­gic.  I feel my throat start to close around her, sometimes.

The fact that she gave me the damned genetic crazi­ness that makes me more than qual­i­fied to say what it means to suf­fer from depres­sion is in most ways beside the point.  The point is, the genetic rela­tion isn’t enough to bring her focus out­side her­self.  She’s always on Planet Mom.  Not Planet Earth, which is shared with every­one else, includ­ing her kids.  So I decided that if I was not going to keep get­ting pushed off Earth and back onto Planet BLC, I needed to shut her off.

It’s been mostly great.  I wish I could say I missed talk­ing to her, but I don’t.  Instead, I have enjoyed speak­ing with friends and with fam­ily who under­stand was social inter­ac­tion is.  Inter-action.  Not lec­tur­ing, or talk­ing non-stop.  I have always known I would need to resume some kind of rela­tion­ship with her, because I would feel guilty not at least doing what’s fea­si­ble to assure her health and well-being as she gets older.  But I have not looked for­ward to speak­ing to her, because I knew, I just knew, in my heart, that when we spoke to each other again, her inter­pre­ta­tion of why we hadn’t spo­ken would be totally from Mom, and not Earth.

- — - -

I picked up the phone tonight, and it was her.  She’d called a few weeks ago, late, while I still was at work, and the BH spoke to her, then told me what he thought about all of it.  He was right, and I was right, too.  Her inter­pre­ta­tion of why we hadn’t spo­ken had noth­ing to do with what really hap­pened, and instead, was based utterly on some other inter­pre­ta­tion of things– that never hap­pened.  She didn’t even remem­ber the real­ity of our last con­ver­sa­tion.  So I let her talk, as she told me all about all the things that had changed since last we spoke, all her new activ­i­ties and med­ica­tions and new grand schemes to rule the world.  She spoke for twenty min­utes, telling me all about her­self, try­ing to prove to me why I should talk to her again, I guess.

But it didn’t.  Because in those twenty min­utes, there was one thing she didn’t say.

“How are you?”

I’ll deal with her again– it has to be done, and she’s too sick, or too old, or too… some­thing to change.  But in turn­ing the other cheek, I’m just allow­ing myself to be slapped again.  I hope my time off has allowed me to grow some cast iron cheeks and a cast iron heart, though I know that it hasn’t, since I’m writ­ing this ‘oh poor me’ post to myself.

I’m breath­ing, Mom.  Thank you for asking.

- — - — -

Nobody’s per­fect.  When I’m inside my hypo­ma­nia, I with­draw and ignore my loved ones, espe­cially my poor, patient, beloved Bet­ter Half, because I’m so intent on what (often legit­i­mately cre­ative) obses­sion is at work inside my brain.  But when I snap out of it, or slip on the mushy banana peel that’s all that’s left of my brain when I’m done, I try to come to aware­ness again, and make amends, apol­o­gize, reach out and social­ize, inter-act again.  I try to say,  “I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch.  I apol­o­gize.  It had noth­ing to do with you, I was just stuck in my head again.  Please, tell me what’s going on with you.”

- — - -

So, here goes.   I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch.  I apol­o­gize.  It had noth­ing to do with you, I was just stuck in my head again.  Please, tell me what’s going on with you.