Carnival in hell
Warning: Talking about addiction and alcoholism in my family
This is not a happy post. I can understand people not wanting to read that after a blue Monday, so I thought I should put up a warning first.
It rained almost uninterrupted for the whole holiday period. "So far for a white Christmas," my mother sighed. Luckily, my parents1 were spared the flooding that terrorized the lowlands around them. Suddenly, between the rain shower and the drizzle, the sun broke through. "Oooh, look, it's carnival in hell!" She exclaimed. I watched the orange rays of the low sun light up the floating drops, and for a second, it looked like someone had thrown a whole box of glitter in the air. "That's some party." I said.
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I avoid sharing personal things happening in my life, even if writing them is quite redemptive in itself.
I suppose I also want to sound like a better person than I am and fear being judged by a deafening silence. Or worse, to receive forced pity. But I have been struggling, and I have only here to get some of that frustration out. That is also why I have not been writing as much. It won't last much longer, so there is no point in complaining in real life but to trudge on and sit through it.
If I ever talk about my mother in the present tense, then I am speaking about my stepmom. She is a great woman with an even greater heart who took strange children into her home and gave them her warmth and attention. If I talk about my mom in the past tense or from memories, I am talking about my biological mom. I would rather not talk about her, but you cannot silence something to death, however much you want to.
As a child, you inherit more than just genes and possible money. Sometimes you inherit responsibility over a parent, even if they never lived up to the name.
My biological mother has been a raging alcoholic since her late 20s. I could go into flowery detail about child abandonment and relationship issues, but anyone who has ever had a parent with an addiction will know the patterns and returning cycles. She has been going through those cycles (better, worse, a little better than worse, worse again, etc.), and to generalize, it's a downward spiral. Every time you think the bar cannot go lower, it is lowered yet again. You also have to be careful not to get too close; people with addictions are leeches. They will try anything to get their fix—even lie to and betray their own family.
Combine that with the fact that my biological mother is blessed with some sort of terminator gene, she had a pretty good run. But in the past few months, she has come to a screeching halt. She went from a capable, independent, two-legged, car-driving person to a trouser-wetting, disabled, walker-using nuisance. Well, at least she took forty years to get there. Some don't make it to fifty living like she did.
It has gotten to a point where she would regularly fall down, and since she has lost, or should I say driven away, everyone who cared a little about her, she spent some nights on the ground with only the pity and goodwill of the neighbors to come and save her.
I have often thought to myself that showing that harrowing loneliness could maybe scare people who are early diagnosed with an addiction in taking their recovery seriously, but it's probably not as simple as that.
My mother checked out quite early in my life, so I am often confronted with the bitter thought, Why should I have to care?
Recently, my older sister and I were bombarded with calls from the neighbors. They were apologetic, but also insistent that something needed to be done. "Yeah, go ahead; who is stopping you?" I thought to myself. I was, of course, being unfair; I know they have no one else to call. If it were up to me, I would have left the situation as it was. It was my mother who chose to hole herself up like a rat, and she will probably die like one too. That sounds incredibly cruel, I know. And no, I am not going to excuse myself and provide some explanation. Anyone who tries to go the angle of "but she is still your mother" can suck my big, fat toe. It is cruel, and I can totally live with it. It is the privilege of being the youngest with no recollection of a normal mother.
But my kind, stressed, and responsible sister could not let it go and let our birth mother waste away, even though she has a very important examination2 coming up that she studied the past year for. My sister is the best thing my mom has done.
And I'm not letting my mother ruin her and her future.
So I stepped up and took over after my sister got a little breakdown on Christmas after two glasses of wine, lamenting how she did not have time for this. My mother is currently in a closed facility in therapy and has one month of the six-month period left; after that, she is sent back home. The goal was to find an assistance house in that short period so we could sell the house and use the revenue to give her some quality of life in her last years. Assistance housing is expensive, y'all.
So that's what I've been doing the past month. Searching houses, planning visits, putting my mom on waiting lists, visiting apartments together... At first, it was an ungrateful job. My mother had a hard time accepting she would have to ditch her big house with a garden in the suburbs, but she came to realize she had spent the past 5 years on the ground floor and had not been able to tend to the garden. The past few months have actually been good for her, as she is now able to walk for a short distance again without a walker. She has also been more coherent and, dare I even say, pleasant to deal with. They have determined that she does suffer from a mild form of Korsakoff (I didn't even know there was some gradation in that), though she has been able to hide it well since she had 'the range'. In human words, she used to be intelligent, so it was harder to spot.
And that's where I'm at today. I found an apartment she saw herself living in, and we are going to sign the papers tomorrow. I've been taking precious time off from work, but I'm hoping this is the last time in a few weeks.
It's quite cruel, actually, how my biological mother almost resembles a glimpse of her former self. We even had a laugh in the car on our way to an apartment. Almost immediately, a heavy weight settled in my stomach. I do not believe she will be able to keep the drinking at bay. She had been drinking for the past forty years; come on now.
And why should she? She has no family left that wants to deal with her; she has lost all her friends; she hasn't worked for the past twenty years; and she has lost the mobility to explore or go to places.
I do not let anything show, though, towards my mother; I do have that decency. What good will a nagging child who comes hurling reproaches at her head do?
I can perfectly understand that my mother is a patient and should be helped. She should be able to get a fifteenth or sixteenth chance. But I am not the right person to give her that grace. I know where this will end, but at least she will be one button press away from help, and she won't have to lie on the cold ground for a certain number of hours.
She thanked me in the car for putting in the effort. I felt vile, knowing I was only there because I wanted to spare my sister. I did not deserve those words. My closest friend told me I am allowed to feel the way I feel and that, despite my reasons, I'm still doing it, and that is what matters. Logically sound, emotionally torn.
I wish I was a better person than this.
Whew. At least writing this out has released some of the emotional buildup. I will probably delete this later; I do find it hard to reread my words. I am already second-guessing even publishing this, shame slowly creeping in. I want to give enough humanity to my biological mother, but at the same time, I notice that I want people to also understand that she was not a nice person when I was younger as to defend some of my thoughts and harsh words. Well, both realities don't have to be mutually exclusive, of course.
Never let yourself get this far, it has never been and will never be worth it.
Kind regards, Rat
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