I’m delusional.
Please understand. Given my health challenges, I have great fear of losing my mind. But if I actually turn cray-cray, I’m going to blame my mother.
I didn’t see my mother for Mother’s Day this year, because the only thing she wanted for Mother’s Day was for me to invite my brother to eat with us.
Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big ask. Allow me to give some backstory.
I’ve never been especially close to my brother. Like many siblings, we had little in common growing up. He’s four years younger and had to follow me up the food chain at a tiny parochial school, something I always regretted for him but couldn’t change. I mean, he was there, and I love him in the whacked way we love family members to whom we cannot relate, but we have nothing in common.
Perhaps that’s what makes me delusional.
No, it has to be how I dealt with his marriage.
When he was in his early 20s, he married a local woman. I liked her. Hell, I even tried to talk her out of marrying him.
Nonetheless, they joined as one in a sweaty ceremony in a Southern country church on a sweltering June day. I wore a polyester teal merengue stained with massive wet spots, something I never resented even though I loathe teal. And polyester. And pouffy sleeves.
I was happy for my brother when they got pregnant, but I wasn’t prepared for how I’d feel about their daughter. She was me made over. I worshipped the ground she walked on and moved heaven and earth to spend time with her.
And for a while, all was perfect.
Or maybe even then, I was delusional.
The cracks started showing when I got involved with MTM. My mother told me my brother’s wife was jealous of how much I traveled and how happy I was. Perhaps my brother was, too. I don’t know.
But they decided to hurt me the only way they could: by restricting my time with their daughter, moving the lines and changing the rules and ultimately making it impossible for me to see her. To this day, she believes I didn’t want to have a relationship with her.
I cried about this situation for years, all while having to listen to my mother crow about her grandchildren and dangle the things she did with them in front of me like food to the starving. She’s always known how to flay me open with words, and she does it with the sweetest little passive aggressive smile.
Probably more delusion on my part.
I barely saw my brother for more than a decade. MTM saw him less than five times during the first ten years of our marriage. My brother chose to take his family to Disney World instead of coming to our wedding, to give everyone a sense of where things were.
And I learned how to deal. Certain friends, like Alice, became my family and worked hard to give me a vital role in her daughter’s life. I was over the stars to be Cooper’s guidemother and am always grateful when I connect with a child. Especially since I’ve always seen myself as more of a child-like guide, an inspiration, a demonstrator of what’s possible. I mean, these children never filled my niece-shaped hole all the way, but I love them fiercely and am beyond grateful to have them in my life.
Though again, certain people will call me delusional.
Certain people named ‘my mother.’ Now we’re back to her.
Not Without My Father isn’t the book it could be, because I didn’t want to nuke my family. And I especially didn’t want to write about my mother until she was dead, when I could pen the unvarnished truth without “Linda’s Revisionist History” being attached to every syllable.
Welp, those days are behind me. I have no more fucks to give.
Because let me assure each and every one of you people here:
I AM NOT DELUSIONAL.
Haven’t read my books? You might want to get on that before this one comes out. Especially since so much of my fiction will finally make sense. GET MY BOOKS HERE.
14 Comments
Ah, catharsis…sometimes bravery is misinterpreted as delusion. 🙂
Yeah. The last time I touched on this topic here, my brother’s ex-wife’s whole family pretty much trolled the post until I took it down. And I’m just getting warmed up. I don’t care what anyone does. I AM FINISHED WITH THIS CRAP.
I do understand your pain when it comes to your niece being taken away. I had a similar situation done to me – a grandchild (though not by blood). I was there when she was born and took her first breath, I was there every single day just to see her, to look at her, and I loved her with every bit of my Grandma heart – every bit of it…and then came the divorce…and then came the, “You cannot see her because I hate your son.” And then came the, “We’re moving to South Dakota.” I am lucky though as I can get on facebook and watch how she’s doing from afar. It’s not the same, it’ll never be the same and that hole will never be filled. My heart goes out to you. What a cruel thing to do to you. To family. Cruel. They are not worthy to be called family when they go out of their way to not only hurt you, but to hurt their daughter – AND MAKE NO MISTAKE, THEY ARE – is an extra notch on the cruelty belt. My heart goes out to you.
People can be so mean. I’m so, so sorry you had that happen, and yes, I know EXACTLY how helpless you are in such a situation.
What’s even harder is the fact that relationships forged in childhood tend to endure. The reason I’m close to my Aunt Lillian now is because we were pen pals from the time I was in kindergarten. She found a way to connect with me that was solely her-to-me. I’m grateful for her efforts, because they were astute. It isn’t as easy for a child who’s heard nothing but badness about a relative to grow up and bond with them. Adults should always, always remember that those conversations stick to impressionable kids. That’s why I never run down Cooper’s mother in front of him, even though she and I aren’t friends anymore. She’s his mother. He loves her and looks up to her, and I would never do anything to try to change that. When he brings her up, I say as little as possible and change the subject. I don’t hold out hope that someday my niece or nephew will come to me and say, “I’d like to get to know you now.” That well was poisoned beyond repair long ago.
I’ve processed much of the pain from this now. You probably remember when I wrote about it the last time. However, I have always been supposed to deny my hurt at the expense of keeping everyone else happy. And I’m finished with that behavior.
Go Andra Go!!!! I’m proud to know you and I’m so proud OF YOU! Hang in there – it’ll probably get worse before it gets better – I know, I know, you’re thinking how can it get worse – DON’T THINK THAT – or the Universe finds a way to Gobsmack you!
I’m sure it can get a lot worse. And thank you.
I’m so sorry for this. Not only do we have to carry the baggage of our own independent choices and lives, we have the baggage of our parents. I would imagine that writing about it would be somewhat helpful but it doesn’t change or make the problem go away. I’m sure you’ve been told many times that you’re good at what you do but let me tell you one more time. I throughly enjoy your books, your posts. You have such a great ability to help me actually see what you’ve done and feel like I’m right there with you watching your dad be your personal salesman. You really are good no great at being an honest and transparent Author and person. Thank you for that. I truly hope you find some sort of answer or closure with your family. Family dynamics are so hard to deal with. No matter what the outcome, you clearly have tons of people who care and look forward to your posts and possibly new book!
I don’t really believe in closure, but I think by writing about it, I can help others who deal with these dynamics in their own lives. I’m almost 50. I have probably lived more life than I have left, especially given my incurable disease, and I wasted so much time pretending things were fine, appeasing people who didn’t deserve it, denying my own happiness, and stifling/discounting my own hurt. I wish I had gone for my dreams in college, but I didn’t. I can’t change the choices I made, but other people still can. That’s the value of telling this story.
And I’m also going to say this: I think my parents did the best job they knew how to do. They both came from very dysfunctional families, because honestly what family isn’t? Families tend to carry on the same learned behavior from generation to generation. Codependence is especially difficult to unlearn. I’m obviously still trying to extricate myself from that web, because it’s taken me this long to say these things in public without some kind of code.
Parents are doomed to get thing wrong. A pity that some, without it even showing, manage to get them wrongest.
I decided not to have children because I wasn’t sure how to fit one into this. My intuition not to have them was spot on, because I would’ve passed this disease to them, and it’s much worse for children.
We were resolved that we wouldn’t have children. Then, when it was getting a bit late we decided we’d probably regret it if we didn’t. Well, they are a joy, but I still tend to regret having brought another two generations into an existence filled with such horrors.
The old saying rings true, you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family. Just so you don’t feel alone, my brother is a complete jack ass. Knows me mainly when he wants or needs something. He lives only 20 minutes away and I’ve seen him once in the past year. The truly delusional X drove a wedge between me and my two, now adult, children. I’m staying in touch but not going out of my way to repair the damage. Hopefully they will figure it out one day. I’m beginning to see cracks in the dam. I suspect that your niece and nephew will someday learn the truth too.
Everyone seems to have someone to provide color and flavor to their lives. Ha. I’m sorry you have someone like this.
And I’m truly sorry about your kids. I absolutely do not understand why people choose to use children as weapons of hurt and pain, but it is a classic tactic that’s probably been going on since the beginning of families.
What I’ve learned is that children are more observant than adults consider when they use their then as pawns. I’ve seen this with a friend’s pre-teens who are caught between divorced parents. I’m sad to hear your niece and nephew are being used as pawns. Stay in touch if you can.
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