my mother's bipolar. It's a subtle bitch of a condition. It masquerades as stubborn pride or indignation but ends with her sobbing in self pity in the corner of her room. It starts with some round about logic about how everything you've agreed upon for the past 3 or 4 days has really been wrong. It begins with what sounds like a suggested alternate course of action.
Mother: have you considered that if you don't do what we've agreed upon because secretly i resent you for not being able to give me exactly what i want and feel i deserve because once i was very wealthy and beautiful and coveted and now i'm not, that it might actually work out better.
Son: well i can't do that. cause i can't afford to.
Mother: well how come your father has a nice house and a nice car and...
Son: well because he's a different person than you.
Mother: it's not fair.
Son: no it's not
Mother: well now i don't want anything. I'd rather not having anything than accept what you can give which isn't what i deserve.
"i've been driving WV cars since i was 16, why should i stop now!"(actual quote)
and it deteriorates from there.
But i have come to one conclusion. She's stable for 4 days. it's the 5th day that sends her off on one of her bipolar induced rages of self pity and anger.
My original return flight home was yesterday Wednesday at 8:50pm. It was perfect. i would have left right at her stability peek. But i had to delay my departure and now i've overstayed my welcome. Her brain is fighting back against my subtle attempts to placate her. to comfort her and control the mental tangents that lead her down dark roads of regret.
But in the end she resents me. she resents that i've accepted my fathers help and secretly and not so secretly at times just wants me to suffer her mistakes with her. to tell my dad to fuck off and shove his money and go hate him from a distance with my mother and my younger brother who did take my mom up on her strategy for all the good it's done anyone.
My father probably was a bit of a dick. I know him enough to accept that half what my mom has accused him of is probably true.
But sometimes. as i myself have recently discovered, you need to let go of the anger or it will just tie you to the person you're hating.
my mom's been tied to my dad through hate for more than a decade.
enough mom.
enough.
Labels: personal