Well, my mother is still batshit crazy – no surprise there, 'eh? At least, not for me…
I’ll go into a little background on my mom at the end of this post… recently she’s started dating a classmate of hers from high school, who apparently had a crush on her then. This is all well and good, or would’ve been, had they not decided to move in together a week after rekindling what, from my understanding, was a non-existent relationship.
Don’t misunderstand, if that was the end of the issue, I’d nominate my mother an award. But, oh no, my mother can’t just do something a little crazy, she’s got to take it to the far reaches. She is now, apparently, pregnant.
It’s not just that she’s pregnant, which is a bad idea in itself considering she miscarried before I was born with twins, at least twice after I was born (one involving an ectopic pregnancy which caused her to lose a fallopian tube), has no job, no money and no assets to deal with the pregnancy, much less the raising of the child. It’s not just that the man who impregnated her lives with his mother, neither of which have assets beyond that of their own support.
All of that is the mundane part of my mothers insanity. She has now drawn a restraining order against her suitor, for I assume assault (not for the first time – this is at least the fourth male she’s drawn these papers against). But this isn’t the beginning of their legal fiasco, because two weeks ago he filed charges of “Larceny.” For what, I do not know – and she claims innocence (although this I doubt, I’ll explain in the background, later on in this post). But before she got a restraining order against him he had apparently agreed to drop the charges, although that’s probably not going to happen now.
She spent a day in the hospital, near losing the baby (according to her). She told the father that she lost the baby, although she hasn’t. She now needs the county sheriff’s department to escort her to his mothers house to pick up what few possessions she has, but she needs to be there for “at least an hour or two” to collect her stuff, and the sheriff’s department has only promised her 15 minutes, as the county is no doubt sorely understaffed and overbudget and cannot afford to spare anyone for any great length of time.
This, of course, resulted in her yelling and screaming at the (apparently quite unjust) Deputy Sheriff, which I’m surprised didn’t result in her being put in jail, as her screaming tends to escalate quickly to idiotic levels of throwing this at peoples heads (again, I’ll elaborate later).
Now, you might be asking yourself an important question regarding my mother… “Well, if she’s living with this guy and his mother… and she’s getting her stuff, and she has no money… where’s she going to be living now?”
That’s a great question, I’m glad you asked!
With her parents, of course! My grandparents, who scraped by with three children in a 3 bedroom house, both working in a factory (different factories, if it matters) and doing odd jobs to scrape by now have another child to support! Who she’s committed credit fraud for into the thousands of dollars against! The kind hearted country folks who refuse to even consider turning in a fraud report against their own daughter for stealing food from their mouths (because they run a business, the increase in their interest rates for non-payment of debt they did not know they had, nor could they afford, was a major consideration).
Oh, did I say another? Yeah, I forgot to mention that my Grandparents take care of my 10 year old cousin, because her sorry sack of shit drug addict of a mother can’t, and the court wont let my Uncle, who’s an equally sorry sack of slightly more appealing contents, because he’s in and out of prison every 6 months on crimes from non-violent felony to misdemeanor.
Okay, well, that about wraps up that little story… Onto the elaboration.
Probably 4 years ago, I was 15. My mother came to visit me (from 900 miles away), and stayed with us for a few days – despite knowing this was a bad idea, my youthful enthusiasm to see my mother overcame my senses, and I allowed it. My father, wanting me to have a good relationship with my mother, and equally hopeful, did the same.
On day 1, it was uneventful.
On day 2, we went to Walmart to pick up groceries and assorted other things. All was well enough until my mother and I got into a minor fuss (as parents and children often do) on the way back to my fathers minivan which I had convinced him to loan me, for her to drive while she was in town.
We unloaded the groceries, still having a minor argument (really, minor – I can’t stress that enough), and I went to put the shopping cart in the cart-alley. This is the point which I knew something was wrong, because I couldn’t hear my mother yelling at me anymore, much like there being a thunderstorm outside, and then it going suddenly and completely still… the birds did not so much as chirp.
On my way back to the van, I went to open the door and it was locked, so I rasped lightly on the glass and said “Mom, c’mon, let me in.” She stared back at me and said, “No.” Rather confused, I made it quite clear I was not joking, and told her to let me in the damn car, or I’d go get the cop and tell him that you’re [some rabble bullshit about child abandonment]. (on weekends, a cop sat outside of Walmart, I assume for shoplifters or thefts or something, although it wasn’t a bad neighborhood)
That was, apparently, enough to get her to let me in the car, so she sat there for a moment fuming about having lost the fight (or so I thought), before she turned to me and started screaming very loudly about how if I ever threatened her again I’d be sorry. This attracted the cop’s (who happened to be female, not male) attention. I could now see her glancing over at us, periodically, when she was looking around the parking lot.
Knowing my mother disturbingly well, and knowing the lesser of two evils (yelling, or being calm) was typically being calm, I chose to be calm, and attempt to talk her down. I apparently made the entirely wrong choice, and she hauled off and whacked me in the jaw. The cramped quarters of the minivan made it a difficult and not particularly painful whack, but I was not amused by the woman who was absentee most of my life assuming the right to physically discipline me.
I started yelling and screaming (I believe, according to the officer, a direct quote) “Don’t fucking hit me again, bitch!” At which point, the officer came over to the car to separate us, calm us down, and call my father (who left work to come sort the whole issue out).
Before my father got there, the officer took both of our names, addresses, statements about the situation, etc. By the time my father got there, the officers explanation of the situation to him was simple. “I believe your son and his mother were having an argument, and it escalated. I gather, from either of them, if the fault was his, but she seemed irrational, and hit him at least once, although he’s not hurt.” (Paraphrased, of course – I have a good memory… but not that good.)
My dad asked me what I wanted to do, we ended up driving home (him and I in one car, my mother in the minivan) with no further issue made. Attempted amends, and trying to continue out the visit peacefully.
Day 3, once again uneventful.
Day 4, uneventful.
Night 4, on the other hand, was not. My mother and I got into an argument… I believe this time over whether or not she had the right to unplug my computer, which I was using, to charge her cell phone because she didn’t want to “plug it in without a surge protector.”
Long story short, she started yelling, eventually throwing her phone at my head (I ducked, it missed). The police were called, and a (different) officer showed up at my house. He had her outside while he was inside interviewing us, and radioed the information on the situation in (we had told him about last night, as well), and I heard a familiar feminine voice on the other end of his radio say “[incoherent] was there last [incoherent] kid and dad alright. Watch the mom though.”
Well, one thing’s for sure – my mother leaves a reputation behind her.
While she was packing her stuff, she stole a large plastic bin I use to store electronics – I had to ask the officer to retrieve it for me so I could return to it the expensive items she dumped onto the floor in taking it. Then, she needed to use the bathroom before the cab we called, got there.
My mother complained about not having any money to pay the cab, and the officer told her, “Ma’am, that’s not my problem – you either leave in that cab or in the back of my car. But if you leave in my car, you’re going to jail.” My father, not wanting to see my mother in jail, gave the officer a $100 bill and told him, “Give this to her at the end of the sub-division. For leaving. It’ll cover the cab ride to her parents.” The officer, surprised, agreed.
The officer escorted her into the bathroom, where he saw her steal a pile of money off the table, 40 or 50 bucks (now you see why it wouldn’t surprise me if she really did steal from this fellow?). This, after she was quite well aware that my father gave the cop $100 for her, his hospitality and after her insanity, she steals from him. Jesus-fucking-Christ, crazy, right? Yeah. Then the cop, after conferring with my father, tells her that she needs to put the money she took off the table back.
Her response was, “What money? I didn’t take any money off the table.” “Ma’am, yes you did, and I need you to put it back, or I’m going to arrest you.” “I didn’t take any money.” “Ma’am, please put your hands behin…” “–Oh, this money? This is my money!” She said as she reached into her pocket.
Right… and I’m the Queen of England… So the Officer says, “Ma’am, there’s less than $100 there, leave the money and you can still have this $100. It’ll be like making a profit.”
She has no argument for this, so she takes the $100 (at the entrance to our subdivision) and leaves.
BUT she doesn’t go to her parents house! Of course! She meets up with a high school friend, and spends the remainder of the $100 on alcohol, getting quite drunk and getting into what I’m sure were nothing but entirely wholesome shenanigans.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, although I don’t quite remember how it fits in, she yelled in an entirely serious tone “I hope you get gangrene!” (in reference to the fact that my shower was apparently not clean enough for her, because it had red lines underneath the faucett.) Which has become something of a running gag between me and my father, whenever one of us thinks the other is being entirely unreasonable in their argument.
In all of this, I should clarify – I am not simply a victim of my mothers insanity, although I take no responsibility for it either. Much like a woman should not be blamed for being raped if she dresses provocatively, a child should not be blamed for being abused or subject to batshit craziness because he refuses to behave.
I have seen very similar from her, but have never been a child of such craziness, I can’t imagine what that must be like for you.
