Momemy

Day 5

My mother is a real piece of work.  I know that some part of her really does just want what's best for me but the way she goes about it is just amazingly fucked up.  First we'll start with my name.  I go by my middle name because my mother gave me her first name.  It causes a massive headache whenever I have something mailed to my parents house that uses my first name and my credit score will always be linked with hers.  I will never understand the fascination with passing down your own name.  My kids have their own identities and names (even if my sons names came from two of my guy friends).  My brother is a third and deals with the same things I do if not on a deeper level because my dead grandfather is tied up in it as well.  (shout out to the Republican Party who still sends him mail and calendars of former Republican presidents after being dead since 1997)

So not only do we share a name but she thinks my entire life is something she's in charge of.  She has a comment or more likely a snide remark for my clothes, my friends, who I date, what I eat, etc.  If I have to spend more than 2 hours in her presence I need a stiff drink.  I still have an unhealthy relationship with food because of her. When I'm around her I don't eat at all and when she's not there I eat terribly because some part of me knows that it would piss her off (and also because cheese fries are the shit).  She's somehow gotten copies of my personal credit cards and used them.  I don't use my first name on my credit cards so its not a simple case of her thinking they're hers. No, she's gone out of her way to use a card with my name.  The most recent incident involved a card I haven't used or had a physical copy of in 2 years and it suddenly has about a grand charged to it. Who does that??

I have to have body image talks with my own daughter to counteract things my mom tells her.  Again, my mom thinks she's doing a good thing so it's really hard to explain to her why it's so harmful.  My mom will tell my daughter she shouldn't do things because its not "pretty" or it'll "ruin her good looks." I then have to go back and rephrase everything so that it pertains more to her health and well being rather than how she looks.  The two of them recently took a trip to DC for a Paul Mccartney concert and I asked if they could make a trip the the Smithsonian museum while they were there and check out a suffragette exhibit.  None of that happened and I was treated like a crazy person for even suggesting it.  I buy my daughter historical non fiction children's books on many women's rights leaders and role models.  She would have loved the exhibit.

I could fill a whole book just on the shit my mom does but this is enough for now.  We're never going to have a Gilmore Girls or Little Women type of relationship and I'm really OK with that.