My Mother’s Routine

My mother has stopped trying. She no longer calls me to see how her grandchildren are doing. She doesn’t pick out a cute dress and matching socks at the flea market. It took my mother six weeks to come over and hold her second grandchild for the first time. She is busy. She’s busy holding it together during the day and listening for clues at night.

When the sun comes up my mother begins her work. She buffs, polishes, and strings gorgeous necklaces, earnings and bracelets fit for the Oscars. She loads them into her van and drives up to West Tisbury or down to Oak Bluffs to sell her jewelry at craft fairs. The way she greets people who come to her booth sounds the way it did when I was seven and pouting under the display table at the Grange instead of at the beach with my friends. “Hello, it’s all hand-crafted on the Vineyard. All real sterling and 14K gold. All real gemstones.” It’s a soft, bouncing spiel that hasn’t change in twenty-five years. There is just a hint of detachment, now, in the words now. I don’t know if it’s coming from her or from me.

At the end of the day she breaks down her booth and packs it all back into the van. Her back aches from the three car accidents she’s had in the past five years. She stops and sits half way through sometimes to organize her thoughts and regulate her breathing. It’s been almost a year since her TIA. When she gets home to the house that is not hers, to her parents house, she doesn’t seek them out. She doesn’t want to greet them or to talk about her day. She only wants to shower and to sleep off the exhaustion of holding it together for another day.

She rinses off the up-island dust thrown around by tourists’ tires as they enter and exist the fair near her booth. She remembers the people who entered her booth and the storyline of her life. The man with his hands in his pockets; he had something to hide. The woman who wiped her nose; a sign that something doesn’t smell right. The couple talking about Cambridge and then waving to a figure across the field; letting my mother know the game isn’t over. As the laser vibrations begin to target her heart and her head at the same time it becomes too much for her. She needs to lay down. She needs to sleep away the stress of this continuing saga. The plan to take away her youngest child and her reputation. But for what? “I wasn’t part of it.” she mumbles quietly enough to not disturb her elderly mother in the next room. “I didn’t know they were going to fly those plains into the towers. Stop punishing me. It isn’t fair.” And she lays her head down to drown out the pain of a daughter who hasn’t returned her calls in two months.

At 3am the whispering wakes her. Just like it does every night. Sometimes it starts a little earlier. They tell her about the past. They explain the plot. They give my mother paths to pursue to find the truth. “Ask Saundra about Carlo’s connection to electronic vibration mind manipulation at the NSA.”

“The post-master knows your number.”

“Two taps means no. Three taps means yes. Listen to the tree limbs on your window. They are telling you the truth.”

And on, and on, and on they tell her what to look out for, what to ask, who she can trust and who she can’t. Then the sun comes up, casting shadows on the whispers. It’s time to go to work and start another day.

I Lost My Phone and My Mind

I couldn’t find my phone. I knew I’d just used it to call the landlord and now it was gone. My first instinct was to check the couch cushions where I’d been sitting. All I found were some Cheerios, a pen, two blue monkeys from the Monkeys in a Barrel game my daughter was playing with earlier in the day, and a random assortment of crumbs that jammed in under my nails. I tried back-tracking to the bathroom. Not there. Nor was it on my desk, on the kitchen counter or in the laundry room.

The next logical conclusion was that I’d lost my mind. It’d finally happened. Without any warning I had begun the steps to insanity that I’d witnessed in my mother ten years ago. I’d first started noticing that she couldn’t find anything. The spaghetti strainer mostly. Regularly, even. That red, dented spaghetti strainer with the paint wearing off around the bottom. My mother would scream Where the fuck is it? Someone stole the spaghetti strainer again! I could hear her slamming cabinets, roughing-up the dishwasher, and opening the fridge before starting to cry. I’d wait until her tears stopped before going into the kitchen. I knew her sadness could easily turn to anger and didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that.

“Have you seen the spaghetti strainer? I think someone took the spaghetti strainer.”

I’d open the cabinet next to the sink and pull out the strainer. “This one, or the little one with the handle?”

“Mother fuckers!” Her screams were shrill. “I looked there. They took it out and put it back to make me look crazy. I’m not crazy!”

Then her beads started going missing. The pearls she’d just bought at the gem show, the molds for her island charm collection, her needle nose pliers. She would scream and tear her workbench apart looking for what she knew had been stolen only to find it sitting in plain sight a week later.

I figured my mother was just getting older. My grandmother will use a ladle to stir soup then walk over to change the volume on the TV and return to the stove ladle-less. Then I started noticing the notes. The hand-written notes in the bathroom, under the mirrors and by the windows. Stop spying on me you perverts! You have no right!

As I opened the dishwasher my heart was pounding. No phone. It wasn’t in the fridge. I even opened the tupperware lid to the salad to make sure it was phone-less. Then I had an idea. I ran to my computer and pulled up iMessage. I fumbled my fingers over the keys and send “lsdfj” to my phone number as a text message. Nothing. I started to sweat. Could someone have taken it? Holy shit, it’s happening. Did someone take the spaghetti strainer to fuck with my mother? Is someone fucking with me? My breath was coming quickly now. I could feel a hot fluttering in my chest and I thought about what the doctors had said about stress. About what my husband had said. I needed to calm down if we were ever going to get pregnant again. I started to get dizzy and tears came to my eyes. They burned like vinegar. You need to be calm. If this is happening you can get help. This isn’t the end. You aren’t your mother. I told myself and collapsed in full panic-attack onto the couch.

“Ouch!” I yelled out and a wave of realization and shame washed over me. I reached my hand into the crease in the top couch cushions and pulled out my phone that had been weggied in there.

I don’t know if or when I will start to loose my mind. And if I do, I don’t know that it will look like my mother’s decent into madness, but I do know that I am terrified of it happening to me. What will happen to my marriage? My daughter? What will happen to me if I loose touch with reality? It’s this constant weight thats hanging over my head. But, at least for now I found my phone.

Daughter of a Schizophrenic Mother

I am the daughter of a schizophrenic mother. Because of this I have been raising a child without a village. It has been a long two years. Two years full of unanswered questions, uncertainty, and a lack of physical and emotional support. When my baby was up with her first fever in the middle of the night all I wanted to do was to call my mother and ask her what I should do. But I knew that was not an option. There was the chance I’d get the loving, eager-to-help mother I needed, but equally likely I’d get the mentally unstable mother who would turn my child’s fever into part of the crusade that she believes has been waged against her.

We all, at some point in our lives, scream out My mother is crazy! Or something similar. And yes, to a certain extent all mothers are a little crazy. It’s what happens after years of sleep depravation and chronic whining and screaming from the little terrorists we hope to turn into responsible, well-mannered adults one day. But, what’s it like to have a mom with a mental illness? It’s unpredictable. It’s never knowing what is okay to talk about and what might set-off the alarms. It’s knowing exactly what’s going to happen next because some poor soul walking down the sidewalk happens to pull-up his pants, or wave to someone, or touch his ear. It’s making excuses for your mother’s yelling and accusations while trying to calm her at the same time. It’s never talking about work during family gatherings and not inviting coworkers to your wedding or baby shower because they are part of THEY. It’s rocking your screaming baby through another excruciating episode of pain due to her food allergies and not being able to ask your mom to hold her for just one minute. Just one minute so you can recharge and be the best mother you can be for your child. You can’t ask your mother about cradle cap without a lecture on the doctors who signed her up for experiments without her permission. When you are the daughter of an unmedicated schizophrenic mother is means never saying I love you. Because you know she will just tell you to fuck off.

My mother does not receive help for her condition. She believes it to be a problem with the people and agencies out to malign her and destroy her life rather than a problem within herself. A person cannot be treated involuntarily for a mental illness unless that person is a danger to him or herself. My mother doesn’t want to hurt herself. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. She wants to be left alone by the people who are after her. Because of this my mother has gone from job to job and rented-room to rented-room trying to stay afloat. She does not receive any government aid because there is “nothing wrong” with her.

Over the past several years my mother has learned to count on me for help. From leads on jobs to paying her phone bill for 3 years to listening to her scream and sob on the phone almost daily. I was her advocate, her friend, her court-ordered-supervisor when she had visitations with my younger sister. Constantly running from a force that never gives up has got to be terrifying, exhausting and lonely. I love my mom and I want to make things a little easier for her. But, now I have a daughter.

My daughter will be two in May and I am just learning what it means to protect her and give her the life she deserves. I’ve realized that living under an unpredictable and sometimes scary mother has taught me to be a nervous person who feels like she doesn’t deserve a calm, predictable life that includes things like self-care. I don’t want that for my daughter. I want her to expect others to talk to her respectfully and to know how to leave an abusive situation. I want her to understand that she is just as good as anyone else and that she deserves all that she can make for herself. I want her to know that she is not responsible for any one else’s feelings. I want her to be able to let her guard down and have trusted people in her life. I want to take care of my daughter instead of having her take care of me. So, I’ve begun to set boundaries with my mother.

I’ve started three major areas of boundary setting with my mother. Number one: When she starts to scream or rant on the phone I now hang up on her. I was terrified to do this initially. I thought she would have no one else to turn to and she would kill herself. She is still here. Number two: I schedule less time with my mother than I used to. It helps that she moved off the island I live on, but even when she visits I insist she stay with my grandmother. Number three: I refuse to become involved in any legal/family drama. When she starts going on about getting custody of my sister back I tell her I am not involved and will not become involved. Which results in screaming. Which results in the use of technique number one. One of my mother’s greatest attributes is her persistence. Unfortunately for me this means continually reestablishing boundaries I’ve already thought were pretty solid.

For now this is working. For now this feels like I can breath and raise my daughter in a healthier atmosphere. In the future I may have to establish more boundaries or even cut my mother out of my life completely, but I still struggle with the need for my mother’s love and approval. I wish I could look to her for advice and help raising my daughter. This won’t ever happen unless my mother seeks help.

If my mother ever read this (or any of my blog) I’m not sure what would happen. I’m worried that she might never talk to me again. I’m worried she might scream at me. But mostly I’m worried she would hurt herself. I’m worried she would be hurt. She would say it was all untrue and I am part of what is trying to destroy her. I’m worried I’d loose what little of my mother I have.

Breaking the stigma of mental illness is a cause that’s been championed by mental health advocates for decades now. It’s not working. Maybe with depression and anxiety, but not with schizophrenia. My own schizophrenic mother doesn’t understand that having a mental illness does not make someone a bad person. If she could see that mental illness is just like any other illness maybe that would make it less scary to consider that the people out to get her are just in her head.

Tornado

Dinner at our house was a time for tornado. Wet hair dripping, arms flung out, out of control bodies twisting and slamming. Bare feet climbing up blonde-wood cabinets, trampling the rest of of the Macaroni n’ Cheese. Slamming both the door on the cup cabinet and the plate cabinet or jerking the faucet violently off and on while piercing the room with high-pitched howls. Long, painted fingers my mother thought could have played piano or modeled rings, now snatched up by my mother and held just high enough to stretch out my toes to meet the ground as her other hand landed on my butt.

Hot body and steaming tears chased me to my bedroom where I upturned every doll, marker bin and box of legos. Hurling the hardest objects at the door I was aloud to burn out into a puddle on my bed. Other times being held with my arms crossed either direction around myself and my mother trying to keep her head clear of my jerking. Sitting on the floor. I, almost on her lap, fought with everything to get away from her body. More fuel added to my cyclone. Needing to run, get away. Don’t touch me. “I’ll fucking kill you, Mom!” Until I had to give up again to another person. My body not my own, it could not run away and break things but it had to do as it was told. I didn’t think about it that way when I was seven, I just thought “I have lost.”

Dinner at Grandma’s house was stuffy. We knew the restrictions before getting there. My heart would beat faster, my temperature rise, my teeth grind in preparation of the carnage. “Ill stay quiet. I just won’t talk.” I’d plan it out with myself. Along with breasts and hips for days, 6^th grade had given me the gifts of forethought and reflection. “I’m going to make it through this Easter dinner under the radar. No disasters this time.” It’d start out nice enough, Grandma asking how we were and complementing us on looking so nice.

Soon enough Fred would start in on me. “Why aren’t you talking? What’s wrong with you?”

And my mother joining in, “This is the first time I’ve heard her quiet all day. Usually it’s non stop arguing.”

And Fred, “How come you give your mother a hard time?”

Grandma, “I wish you two would just behave for your mother. After all she does for you and all her hard work. You need to be nice to your mother.”

Fred, “If I ever talked to my mother the way you do or if I acted out my father would be there with the belt…”

I was gone. Anger, tears, hot skin pinking, reddening and ripening ready to fall off. I wanted to run, scream, kick, bite, hurl myself into something solid but I was too old for that now. I had only my words. My body was, except for the age-appropriate door slam, stilled years ago into submission. No longer able to fight back. And words came. They weren’t nice ones. They couldn’t stop. They were out of control tornados hurled at the people who’d just wanted to have a nice dinner. “Saundra, why can’t we just have one nice dinner?”

Dinner at White Hall cafeteria at Lesley College was unrestricted. I was alone and I could think of whatever I wanted. Or I could not think. I could have chocolate pie every night. I did. It was soothing to eat in peace. Even while the rest of the cafeteria was noisy with the chatting voices of newly freed young women. I could sit and eat and eat and eat.

And then I would go home to the Vineyard on breaks. Home to my family. Home for the holidays. Home for dinner at Grandma’s house. Newly sophisticated, learned, better than my family who hadn’t graduated from college in four generations. Home to, “Why aren’t you talking? What’s wrong, you don’t want to talk with your family?”

“Oh, Fred,” my mother would say, “Don’t get her wound up already. You know she’ll get going and we just want to have a nice dinner.”

“Oh yeah, did they teach you to behave at school?” Fred would ask.

“At least she’s not climbing on the counter tops like when she was little. Do you remember how horrible she was, Lor?” My grandmother would ask my mother.

“She was swinging from the chandeliers!” my mother would chime in.

We didn’t have chandeliers! I’d want to scream! But I didn’t.

“Have you heard of traumatic response?” I asked my mother one time after she’d, laughing, recalled one of my childhood tantrums. She had. She knew. She had been told how I sometimes couldn’t stay in my body. How I needed to destroy–the way I’d been destroyed. How the screams let out the violations against my child body. She’d explained to my grandparents on the phone and quietly while the kids were in the other room. They all knew I wasn’t acting out. That I was reacting from within.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I wanted to ask her. Why didn’t any of you tell me? Help me to understand where my rage, and running, and screaming tornado body had come from? Why didn’t you tell me to tornado in the living room with the soft pillows? Teach me to tornado safely. Tornado with art, writing, moving. Why did you spank me and tell me I was a bad kid?

3 Nights

My mother made it three nights at her new job. Three nights. She got the soda prices right away, she told me. She never stopped, never sat down, she said. But there was something going on. It had to do with the high school. They wanted to prove it wasn’t them, it was her. She’s just stupid. Too dumb to be taught. Too dumb to learn. 

“You’re not dumb.” I forced out. She’s not. There is nothing wrong with her processing except that she’s usually too busy processing false information to pay attention to what’s going on around her. When she doesn’t respond right away it’s not because she didn’t understand the question, she’s weighing her options and fitting it into the matrix of the world she’s created. How can this question hurt me? Who else has asked this question? What is really being asked? Where is the hidden code? I imagine her sorting through the answers to those questions before she can reply.

Three nights. Earlier today I’d told my psychiatrist how impressed I was with my mother’s ability to get this job, show up, and go back the next day. Maybe it’ll be good for her. I’d said. She can’t anticipate who will come in, what will happen. She’ll have to learn to deal with stuff as it comes up. Dr. Merion agreed that it would be a good measure of how much my mother can tolerate and give her the chance to practice facing difficult situations and working through them. I had hope that she could expose herself to enough shit that she could start to negotiate having a child in the real world. I had hope that my younger sister could have her mother back and I could have my life back. I hoped so much but I must have known because I wasn’t surprised when my mother said she no longer worked at Edgartown Pizza. I must have known, that’s why I asked the question. She hadn’t said anything about her new job in two days. Not even a complaint. That’s probably what triggered my suspicion.

Three nights was enough time for my mother to ruin her chances of a new life. After her second night she told me about the “crazy stuff,” that goes down at the pizza place. “This woman, I mean, every time she bends over you can see her entire tattoo on her back! I mean what’s that about? So I just gave it right back to her. I said, ‘Did you know that every time you bend over, everyone can see your whole tattoo?’ You have no idea the shit that I deal with. No idea.” When she mention, upon her third telling of the tattoo tale, that the woman was her boss I think I just started counting down her time there.

The thing is, when she came into my store after her second night at Edgartown Pizza she looked complete. She was wearing her Edgartown Pizza t-shirt under her new, second-hand, North Face jacket. She looked like she’d worked an eight hour shift and was proud to have put in her time. Tired. But accomplished. I felt so happy for her. I felt like she could be happy. It breaks my heart to know how she must feel now. Another failure. Another trap. Another step away from the woman she used to be.

Coincidences

The day after they identified the Boston Marathon bombers my mother texted me a picture of a teenage boy by Edgartown harbor. He was facing away from the camera and wearing a white, backwards baseball-cap and a backpack over one shoulder. “The Boston bomber?” her caption read.
We call them coincidences, but for my mother they are her daily hell. I started noticing it when my mother was in her 40s. Maybe it was there before and I just didn’t notice because she was my mom. We’d talk about someone and later in the day see the person in the grocery store. “That’s just a little too coincidental, don’t you think?” My mother would say to me in her I know what’s really going on, voice. “I’ve been looking for the pasta strainer all day and then it just shows up in the dishwasher,” she’d accuse. “Who is telling you to say that?” she’d demand when my opinion differed from hers on anything.
Now, six years after her brother’s suicide triggered a complete mental breakdown, my mother calls me from her rented room on the Cape to ask me about conversations I’ve had with random people in the past or to ask if I’ve heard from my ward-of-the-state-little-sister who lives with my brother and refuses to see our mother. “What exactly does Rebecca do for a living and where did she go to college?” was the text message she sent me this morning about a friend of mine from childhood. I mostly ignore these inquiries along with the long texts about the vibrations that stalk her wherever she goes.
I want to tell my mother that no one is after her. That she is safe. That the NSA, the local high school and the counseling center did not team up to ruin her life and take her daughter away from her. But I know that after she stops screaming at me to believe her and support her she’ll ask me, “It’s just a little too coincidental, don’t you think?”

Momming

Remember when you were in the passenger seat and your mom had to slam on the breaks (because she didn’t notice the car in front of you had stopped while she was yelling at you or one of your siblings in back)? Before you could smack your cute, little face into the dash, Mom had reached her arm across you. Like a human airbag. That’s “momming.”

I’m pretty sure the only time my mom reached across the car at me was the time she gave me a bloody nose. I don’t remember what I was doing, but I remember it was annoying. She’d just picked us up from my grandmother’s after her second job. It was dark, but I wasn’t tired. I was full of energy and excited to see my mother after being cooped up under grandma’s rules all day.

I don’t know what kind of day she’d had. I know, now, that it was long. She worked in a mail room 8am-4pm, and in a high-end boutique 5pm-9pm. Most days. I didn’t think then to ask her how her day was. It wasn’t my job to ask her how her day was. I was a kid. But, I think now, that she needed someone to ask her how her day was. Someone to listen to her and care about her as much as she cared about us. Someone to rub her feet and tell her to take a nap. But, she never had that person, as far as I can tell, and she took that out on us. Not in a way I’d call typically abusive. More, in the way a person who looses balance next to a rushing stream might grab out at the nearest bystander. Even if she doesn’t pull you in with her, you’re at least going to get wet from the splash.

It wasn’t her best parenting moment. I heard her crying next to me. I’m not sure if it was guilt about hurting me or just the release she needed after her day. It wasn’t her worst parenting moment, either.

My daughter will be two in May. I have it a lot easier than my mother did. My husband and I are together. He has a good job. We make enough money to pay the rent. I stay home with our daughter who goes to daycare three days a week while I work online and try to catch up on cooking, cleaning and sanity. So, why am I having such a hard time being a better mom? Why do I have so much anxiety that I can see my daughter is about to trip over a toy but my body is frozen and won’t let me catch her or yell out? Why do I get so angry at her for emptying out the spoons all over the floor that I yell and slam the drawer shut loudly before picking her up with hate in my grasp and fear in my heart before dropping to the couch with her to cry in shame? Why do I feel like I’m floating outside myself watching my body angrily shush her at 3am when she’s crying again instead of holding her close and rocking her back to sleep? It’s like I know how to be a better parent but my body is possessed by my mother’s rage, fatigue and loneliness from my childhood.

I’m worried that when it really matters I won’t have that “momming” instinct to throw out my arm to save my daughter. I’m worried that I’ll end up crying next to her in the dark while her nose bleeds down her shirt.