History of Erin Boat

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The Unnecessary Backstory (the beginning)

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But Anyway by Blues Traveler

Explosion.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Last night, at around 8:30, I started to a blog post about my mom. I'm really getting sick of her on/off drinking. I'm tired of knowing she downed a half liter bottle in one day, and then watching her hands shake all the next day.  I'm tired of knowing that the colds she keeps getting, causing her to spend the day sleeping, are actually hangovers. I want to do something about it. Talking to her didn't work last time I tried. I don't know of another way of doing it, without uprooting my family.

Right now though, it doesn't matter anymore, what the right thing to do is. Right now, I'm too hurt to even think about doing anything. I just want to cry. I'm hoping that sharing will help. There was a huge fight last night, and the only way that I think I can feel better is to type out the whole thing bit by bit.


I wake up at 5am to go to work, so I try to get in bed by 10. Last night, dinner was late (9) and I went immediately from dinner to showering. I planned to go straight to bed after. When I got out of the shower, though, my sister said my mom was looking to talk to all three of us at the same time.


She started SCREAMING at us, all three of us, for not unloading the dishwasher. I was annoyed. I hate being yelled at. I told her, as politely as I could, that in the future, she can tell us without yelling. Turns out, there isn't really a polite way to say that.


She didn't let any of us get up to do the dishwasher, even though her open floor plan would have allowed for someone to do the dishwasher, while being yelled at. She turned to Amanda and went off on her too. Manda had just been on vacation for 3 weeks, and had forgotten that she had a new once-a-week chore. She was only told about this chore a few days before she left. She hadn't even had a chance to do it for the first time.


My mom yelled at Amanda for a few minutes, and poor Manda had no idea what my mom was yelling at her about. She didn't remember at all what her chore was. And my mom kept making her guess what she was supposed to be doing. Eventually I blurted it out, and my mom flipped out on me again.

She kept switching back and forth, from yelling at me to yelling at Manda. After a few minutes of back and forth, Manda said something that broke my heart. "I should have just jumped off the roof that day. I should have just killed myself when I had the chance." I remember that day. I was in Virginia still, but my mom called me to tell me what was going on. It terrified me then, but hearing it come from Manda's own mouth was worse.

And they started arguing more, but I couldn't handle it any more. I started screaming, that I couldn't do it. That I couldn't listen to them argue like this. My mom said "This is hte only way we can fix this! We have to have this argument!" and I told her that I couldn't. I could handle the chore argument. I couldn't handle listening to her screech at my sister, and really really couldn't handle listening to my sister half-threaten suicide. When I started yelling, Lauren burst into tears too. Now all four of us were crying.

I walked off, and my mom told me that if I left, I wasn't coming back, and I would have to move out. I changed my mind mid-step, but kept walking, turning towards the bathroom to blow my nose, which was running because I was crying.

I spent as much time as I could blowing my nose, and blowing as loud as I could to drown them out.

I stopped blowing just in time to hear Manda say "I hate it here. I hate everyone in this family. I never have felt like I belonged. None of you like me."

And somehow, even though I was angry at my mother, I started shouting at my sister. I love her. She didn't seem to get that. Instead she mentioned something that a non-family member had said to her, about how she was going to ruin everyone she came in contact with.

No matter what I said, it didn't matter. She repeated herself several times about how we all hated her, and how it was our fault that she hated herself. I kept repeating myself too. "What about me? Don't you know I don't hate you? I love you, Manda." It didn't seem to do any good.

Meanwhile, my mom was still yelling, yelling over us, and ignoring the fact that this was happening. She kept yelling at Manda about her chores. I interrupted again, just about as loud as I could, which wasn't very loud because my throat was hurting already from crying. "This is why I can't listen to you two argue. Do you hear what Manda is saying? Do you hear what you're saying? I can't do this!"

And then I apologized to Manda, because I really was sorry. I had never ever meant to let her feel that way. I wish I had known a long time ago that she felt that way, and I can't help but blame myself. I went over to give manda a hug with my apology. She pushed me away and wouldn't even look at me.

I tried to redeem myself. Instead of running away from it, like I wanted to, I stayed. I stood up for them. But it was too little, too late. And then when my mom finally let us go, I emptied the dishwasher, and had to go to bed. I couldn't even stay up to make my sisters feel better. Manda was still crying when I went to bed.

And now my mother is giving all of us the silent treatment, which just really PISSES ME THE FUCK OFF! I can understand her giving it to me. After I apologized to Manda, I tore my mother a new one. But Manda and Lauren, I just don't understand. Lauren didn't even do anything. Manda got angry with her, but Manda is just a kid. Was she out of line? Yes. Both of them were. Is this a good way for my mother to handle it? No, not at all.

As I was writing this, Manda messaged me and told me she thinks my mom is drinking. I already know she is, and so does Lauren. My sisters and I are going to have a talk all together soon to figure out what to do. I want to call DCF/DSS/whatever, and get them out of here. But I know that when I was there age, I would have hated if anyone did that to me. So I want to know what they want. I'm moving out soon anyways, so all that matters to me is that they are okay once I leave. And I want them to know that I will ALWAYS be there for them. That I love them.

This is NOT a good situation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope you feel at least a little better after being able to vent about this. Have you ever thought about staging an Intervention? I don't know much about them, other than what I've seen on TV. I think you could get in touch with a drug/alcohol counselor, or AA and see what kind of help they could offer you. I hate that you and your sisters have to live with this kind of crap. Is there anywhere else your sisters could go to live, temporarily until your mother REALLY gets her act together? I can only imagine the kind of emotional damage her alcoholic rants are causing you & your sisters. :(

Teri

July 15, 2010 at 6:22 PM
E Boat said...

There isn't anywhere that my sisters could go. My father can't take them in because he doesn't have a house. Their father can't take them in, because he's not even allowed to have unsupervised visitation. My aunt wont take Manda. I am living at home (hopefully not for long. cross your fingers that Jeffrey finds a job, or I find a higher-paying job so that we can afford to get out of here), so I could only take them upstairs, which wouldn't do any good. I don't know any other stable adults.

I might stage some sort of intervention, but I don't really know any more than you do about it. She was in AA for a while, but quit. It wasn't doing her any good anyways. She was drinking when she got back from the meetings. I'm going to do some research on other different systems, types of therapy, and maybe even different types of rehab. Something new and different that might work better.

July 15, 2010 at 9:11 PM

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