If I don't get this off my chest right now.... *TW*

I just need to rant. I'm so triggered right now and I have nobody to vent to. I'm just gonna let it out and I apologize in advance if it doesn't make much sense. It's very long, I'm sorry.

This is about my narcissistic mother who is a nasty hoarder and who raised me in a filthy home with roaches, ants, maggots, silverfish, centipedes, beetles, mold, mildew, stench, slime, $#%^, piss, garbage, rot, grunge and just overall disgusting.

She never bathed me or my siblings. Hell, there was never even things like soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. One of my clearest memories from childhood (there aren't that many, I've blocked most of it) was of sitting on the bus and some kid saying over and over "ewww, I bet you could fry an egg in her hair!" And I just sat there looking out the bus window crying.

Anyway, laundry would pile up in the garage next to the washer/dryer. A veritable mountain of clothes, linens, etc. that would turn moldy and unwearable. Us kids had to choose between re-wearing the clothes from the day before or try to sort through "mold mountain" to try to find something wearable. Either way, you know we got bullied at school for it. (We weren't allowed to use the W/D cuz she said we would break them.)

They never cut the grass, so the city would send somebody to do it (after numerous neighbor complaints and numerous warning letters). And we lived in a fairly nice neighborhood so it was especially embarrassing. Not a ritzy area but very respectable. Which made us pariahs.

A little more background on me: because of my childhood (which also included incest and a host of other $#%^), I now deal with severe anxiety, PTSD, agoraphobia, Avoidant Personality disorder, depression, and Attachment Disorder (mostly all self-dx'ed). On top of all that, I suspect I'm somewhat autistic. I live in a shed on her property because I simply cannot even deal with "the world" anymore. I can't even get disability because I'm so avoidant that I don't go to any kind of doctor or therapist, haven't gone for decades now, so none of this has been documented. (Hell, I buy antibiotics for FISH off the internet so when I get sick - strep, tooth infection, etc - I don't have to go to the doctor.) I don't even have any ######6 medication to help me deal with any of it. Do you know where I can buy Xanax online? Yeah, me neither.

On with the rant:

Now that you have an idea of my upbringing, let me tell you what came out of her mouth today. I'm painting her living room (because she, in her delusion, thinks that if her living room is freshly painted then people won't notice the cat $#%^ on the floor, or the roaches, or the piles of rotting garbage, or the smells, etc), anyway it's some pocket money for me if I do it so I agreed. I'm sitting there on the filthy floor washing the filthy baseboard so that I can paint it, and she says something trivial and my answer referenced *skiing*. Remember that word, skiing.

O.M.G. She launched into this LONG monologue that went something like this :

"When I was growing up in New York there was this house across the street that was just......... REVOLTING!!!! I mean, it was nasty!!! It smelled!!! I mean, it STUNK!!!!! You couldn't even tell one smell from another, the whole house just stunk!!!! And the roaches!!!! You would open the front door and there were just roaches EVERYWHERE!!!!! And trash everywhere!!!! And the girl that lived there, Jenny K., nobody wanted to be her friend because her house and her family were so gross!!!! I mean, NOBODY would even talk to her!!!!"

(By this point I am just frozen. My back is to her so she can't see my face, thank god. I'm thinking 'Do I say something? Do I walk out? Do I punch her?')

She goes on :

"But *I * was her friend. When nobody else would be her friend, *I* was her friend! You know why? Because she was SMART!! She was the only person I knew who was as smart as ME and understood what I was talking about!!!! All the other girls just wanted to talk about boys and clothes and makeup but I had more important things on my mind!!! Jenny and I would talk about science and music and literature!! Well, Jenny didn't talk much, she was a real quiet girl, so it was usually me talking, but she was a real good listener!!!! I mean, it didn't matter if I was talking about space travel or meteorology or whatever, she never asked dumb questions or acted uninterested!!! She really got me!!! Such a good listener!!!!"

"Anyway, she remembered Mom and she left a nice note on the Condolences page on the funeral home's website, so I tracked her down on facebook and sent her a friend request. I never heard back from her, though..... she probably never saw it..... but anyway, I know she went on to college. I don't know how she paid for it, I don't know if she worked her way through school or if her parents got a loan, I don't think they had Pell grants back then, but I guess they got a loan or something, and I don't know if she got her Ph.D. or just a MS, I remember seeing something on her facebook profile about a graduate degree, maybe it was that she has her MS now but she's working on her Ph.D., but I don't know why she would do that now, she's too old to do anything with it, she's my age, she should be retired, but then again I'm not retired either, I don't know the meaning of the word, my brain is too active to ever let me "retire", ha ha ha, I have to keep doing something to stimulate my intelligence or I just wouldn't know what to do with myself.......but whatever, she did real good for herself!! She raised herself up out of that squalor and made something out of herself!!!"

"Anywaaaaaaaay, I remembered her just now because her facebook profile said she loves *skiing*!!! It's her FAVORITE thing to do!!!! She LOVES SKIING!!!!!!!!!"

You, gentle reader, remember that word, don't you? *skiing*. That casual, random reference I made to skiing is what precipitated her verbal vomit tsunami, that slapped me in the face with her mentions of that poor girl's upbringing in her filthy home with (probably) abusive parents and no friends. And ZERO comprehension on her part that she just described MY childhood.

I made an excuse to leave and came home to write this. I'm shaking now. Like, violently. I have a splitting headache now, I suspect from gritting my teeth so hard.

One last thing?

It's my birthday today, and she forgot.

If you got this far, thank you for reading.

I haven't read the whole thing. But Happy Birthday. Sometimes it is good to just get it all out. Hug!

Amanda

That sounds terrible that you had to grow up in those type of conditions. I'm so sorry. And you have every right to feel like you do. Happy Birthday from me. Hugs if wanted.

Holy crap. Every now and then you think, we have had it all, but wow, that is ... don't know what to say.

Okay, I would love to sit down and talk to you, because .. and I hope you take this the right way, but.. you sound so together.

Brought up in an insane world, guaranteed to make your life near impossible, and yet, if you go back and read it, you sound so together.

I am simply in awe.

You are amazing and your story is not yet over.

Can I ask about your father .. what happened to him ?

AmandaBroken wrote:I haven't read the whole thing. But Happy Birthday. Sometimes it is good to just get it all out. Hug!

Amanda

Yeah, it's long, for sure. I intended to just paraphrase, but I wasn't sure people would "get" just how self-absorbed she is. And I don't usually document these interactions with her because a) it's time-consuming, and b) I worry that it causes me to ruminate on the episode even more than usual. But this just rubbed me so wrong, on top of it being my birthday, that I just couldn't let it go. I mostly just wanted some confirmation of what a horrible person she is. Although that and $3 will get me a cup of coffee, heh.

Thank you very much for the birthday wishes and the hug! I'm actually crying now because complete strangers are kinder to me than my mother. I don't want to be rich or famous or anything special. I just want a mother that loves me, you know? It hurts SO. MUCH. And I *know* it's not my fault, and I *know* there's nothing wrong with me, but I only know that in my brain. My HEART aches for the little girl who was unloved. I'm not her daughter, I'm not even a person to her. I'm just her audience.

-- Fri Feb 24, 2017 1:44 pm --

quietgirl2538 wrote:That sounds terrible that you had to grow up in those type of conditions. I'm so sorry. And you have every right to feel like you do. Happy Birthday from me. Hugs if wanted.

Thank you so much. I know I'm not the only one with a crappy childhood, but sometimes I feel so alone in it. Even just a little confirmation that I'm not over-reacting or being a drama queen (as I was so often accused of as a child/teen) helps to counteract the awful emotions that these situations evoke in me. I very much appreciate the support!

Oh, and my son made me a cake and got me a card so that was very nice

Terry E. wrote:Holy crap. Every now and then you think, we have had it all, but wow, that is ... don't know what to say.

Okay, I would love to sit down and talk to you, because .. and I hope you take this the right way, but.. you sound so together.

Brought up in an insane world, guaranteed to make your life near impossible, and yet, if you go back and read it, you sound so together.

I am simply in awe.

You are amazing and your story is not yet over.

Can I ask about your father .. what happened to him ?

Ah, Terry. I'm so glad you replied. I usually avoid this forum because it's unbearably triggering for me, but I lurk often enough to know that you're a frequent poster (and, I believe, a moderator?). If anybody gets it, you do.

I'm not sure how "together" I am. I can write well, because - at the risk of sounding like her - I'm no dummy. I'm convinced my brain is what has kept me off the streets or prison. But I've only left the property once since last June (9 months?), and that was only to go to a disability doctor for an evaluation. I fully expect to get denied. Anyway, I have nobody in my life except my mother and my son, who is amazing I want to say. He has been my lifeline. I lean on him far too much but I am just at rock bottom and don't know what else to do at this point. So, anyway, yeah, I don't feel "together" AT ALL. I do very much appreciate the kind words, though. I usually avoid all contact with people (because it usually ends badly), but humans are social creatures, no? And even loners get lonely once in a while. It's so helpful to be able to reach out here and feel the support.

To answer your question, my father is rotting in hell, where he belongs. Sometimes I wish she would join him. Then I feel horrible for thinking that. I'm rather conflicted, as you might imagine.

One of the hardest things is that unless you have personally been touched by this crap I will say here and now.. you will never really get it (and they never should say ..."i understand").

I trawl through the research and to those men I have the utmost respect. To dig into this crap, voluntarily, to help people, I think I can say no higher calling.

But again, so many little things resonate. It happens again and again. Sometimes I will read a MBP and have to re- read it as it sounds like what I would have described.

There is a pattern to this stuff and it repeats again and again.

Yeah, the IQ comes through.

I read that the biggest two things that separate the severe cases from getting institutionalized are:-

IQ and sense of humour.

Any time you want to rant, put it up. I learn as much from people like you (often more) than I do spending hours going over the research.

Look after yourself, love your child,

Sorry, what's MPB?

Muchausen By Proxy.

people who make the child they are supposed to love very, very sick,

and unless they are caught and the child is protected as the child gets older, the abuse starts to become emotional and physical in most of the cases I have seen.

lots of family dynamics at play, a category all of it own, but so is yours.

there is neglect and then there is your case.

Terry E. wrote:Muchausen By Proxy.

people who make the child they are supposed to love very, very sick,

and unless they are caught and the child is protected as the child gets older, the abuse starts to become emotional and physical in most of the cases I have seen.

lots of family dynamics at play, a category all of it own, but so is yours.

there is neglect and then there is your case.

Ok, I've read about MBP. Were you that child?