Today has been a long and difficult one, Mibba. I spent 9 hours at work cleaning 16 checkouts - which is about 10 more than usual lately. Then I got home and my boyfriend and I chilled for a few hours. We watched Rick and Morty for awhile and then smoked a bit, and then my father's friend messaged me on Facebook and told me to call my Dad as soon as I got a chance.
I should have known something was up right then and there, and I shouldn't have called. Let me pre-explain this entire situation in a few short sentences before getting in to what my Dad wanted to talk about.
So, growing up I had really shitty parents. Mom constantly put everything above my welfare. One of my standout memories of her is the Fourth of July after I turned nine years old. My younger brother and I were going to spend a couple of weeks in Minnesota with our adult cousins, Tony and Sheila, because we didn't get to see them a lot and their kids (Tyler and Ashley) were about our age and everybody thought it would be a great way to kind of help all four of us through the fact that my dad's father was getting really sick. My mother was fine with the idea of going up until right before we were leaving for our picnic. She went batshit crazy and sent me into a panic attack that caused me to hyperventilate and pass out. Sometime while I was passed out, she slapped me so hard on my face that it left a hand-shaped bruise. We ended up going, but the trip was cut short because my grandfather ended up dying about a week and a half after we got to Minnesota and we went home.
Dad wasn't much better, though he wasn't physically abusive like my mother. He was a non-functioning alcoholic while I was growing up - to the point that I don't really remember seeing him sober any time before I turned 12 or 13. Maybe a couple of times here and there, but not often enough that I have a memory. He kind of just retreated into himself and took a lot of his aggression out on my younger brother - who he was physically abusive towards, and our older brother because of his addiction. Which, looking back, was probably started in part because of our parents.
Anyway, that all leads to a couple of years back, in 2014 when my mother got diagnosed with state four breast cancer. The diagnosis changed her...or I thought it did, anyway. She got treatment for bipolar disorder and all the crazy abusive behavior stopped, she apologized for my childhood and amends were made to a certain degree. I say to a certain degree because while I thought I had gotten over it, I've been having a lot of anger issues lately because a lot of the memories are starting to come back and I've realized that I never got the closure I probably needed.
Two years ago, I kind of decided to detach from all of my family. I moved to a state where literally none of my family - extended or otherwise - lives. It's just me here in Tennessee, by myself. And I must say, as difficult as last year was for me with some of the things that I had to endure, almost all of it has been worth it just to get away from all the bullshit that is called my parents and grandmother. Throughout the two years that I've been in Nashville, my mother and I have talked a fair amount - always with me calling her, messaging her, etc. etc.
Always.
You see, Mibba, the entire time that I've been away from my family, none of them have ever called me first. Ever. Sometimes it'll be three months and I'll realize, hey. I haven't talked to my parents in x amount of time, what's up? And I'll call them, and then it'll be another three months and the cycle just repeats itself. I always feel upset after the calls, and I've never really understood why. My boyfriend and I have frequently talked about this because for the first time in my life, I refuse to keep quiet about the things that bother me and I refuse to bottle things up anymore.
He pointed out that a possible reason for the negative feelings that I get after talking to them might simply be because I'm the only one putting in any effort. He made the comparison that, if it was our relationship and I was the only one trying and he reaped the benefits of it, I'd feel resentful and hurt.
He's totally right about that, and so I decided a change needed to be made. I stopped calling anyone in the family at all, and I counted down. It took my dad a month and a half before he got his friend to message me tonight. My mother never messaged at all, and the only reason my grandmother messaged me a few weeks ago was to berate me and tell me, in short, how awful of a person I am. Her choice words were 'selfish' and 'immature.'
It turns out that my mother has known for a week and a half that she's got a spot of brain cancer. Like...for fucking real? She's known for that long and didn't think it important to even message me on Facebook to call her. She called my dad to bitch about the fact that I don't call her. He's been her ex for eight years, and it was more important for her to bitch to him and tell him about the brain cancer than it was to contact me.
I blew up worse than I ever have before on my family tonight, guys. I don't think my father was expecting me to be as angry as I was once he told me about her cancer. He didn't try to defend either her or himself when I told him that the entire reason I'm so closed off, distant, and cold when it comes to family is because they raised me that way. I didn't have parents who really did much for me. I fended for myself most of the time, and they've both acted like I owe them the world when they do small favors for me on the rare occasion that I have needed them. He didn't have shit to say when I told him that after so long of me being the only one to reach out and try to talk to people in the family, I'm done trying. I'm done putting forth the effort. If someone wants to get ahold of me, they've got my Facebook to get the number I use. Or they can message me. I've always made that very clear. My friends have never had a problem with it (to my knowledge, anyway) so I don't see why my family thinks it's such a terrible thing.
Honestly, this whole thing just pissed me off. The entire time she was struggling with her breast cancer, I was as supportive as I could be living across the country. I talked to her, listened to her cry when her hair fell out, listened to her sob in pain when the chemo got bad. I was there for her through all of that on the phone, and she still didn't think it important to call me about this. So I'm done. I really, truly am. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy that she's got more cancer to deal with. It's scary, and I'm upset about it. But I'm done letting my mother make my life revolve around hers. She is not the center of the universe, cancer or not. And I'm glad that I'm finally realizing that.
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