Repost Broken

Original post was on, Thursday, February 25, 2010

Broken

Some times a person has to learn to deal with broken things. Not every thing that is broken can be fixed or replaced. This is a challenge for me because I am a fixer.

I am facing, yet again, that my mother can not be fixed.

She is not doing well. My little sister has passed that information on to me. She wanted me to have the time to decide if I wanted to go see her before she passes away.

Mom needs surgery but will not agree to it. She still has the power, under the law, to make those decisions for herself. I wonder does she know what that really means?

Mom fell last week. She tried to get up during the night and tripped over her wheel chair and walker. My little sister took pictures of her injuries and sent them to me. Her face and hands were bruised. She has 2 black eyes. Like a person would get if they broke their nose. She also has a nice knot on her forehead. Her hands have deep bruises on them. It hurt me to see her like that.

I wish I could go and sit with her. I wish I could pass on some comfort to her. But there is nothing that I can give her. If I went to visit her it would most likely set her off. She would ramble about all of her delusions that are tied up with me. It would just upset her.

What I really want is a relationship that I never reallly had with her. I remember loving her so much as a child. Even when she frightened me I still wanted her to console me. But her sickness has always made that impossible.

I was her caretaker after I became an adult. That consisted of being the payee for her disability money she received. The State would not give the money to her. They knew she was crazy and could not be counted on to take care of her money. She was married to a mean drunk. He was not nice to her. At least the State did not allow him to be her payee. I took her to do all of her shopping and paid all of her bills. I wanted so bad to be close to her that, at first I was glad to put up with the drunk at her house. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I was going to be the "bad guy" if I didn’t let them have the money to spend on what ever they wanted. Of course he always wanted cash in case of an emergency. Since he was an alcoholic you can guess what his emergencies where. Real, true, crazy women don’t attract nice guys that help take care of them.

I watched her make STUPID choices that I could not talk her out of. But because she is an adult and because it is not against the law to be crazy they were her choices to make. I did this for a several years before I admitted that I just couldn’t do it any longer.

I wanted my mother to love me. I wanted to save her and to keep her safe. I wanted to help make her life better. I wanted to fix things for her.

What she wanted from me was a ride to the store.

My mom has always lived in her own world. She just isn’t aware of anyone else around her. If she walks in the door first she will shut it in your face. Not once will she come back and see where you went. If you are standing in front of something she wants she will just push you out of the way. Doesn’t matter if there is no room for you to be moved to. She will still push. I have never come across anyone else like that. I would like to blame it on the meds but since she never took them regularly.....

Any way it appears that her health is slipping fast. And she may not be here much longer. I am surprised at how sad this makes me.

She is not normally a happy person. She is not pleasant to be around. Everyone can be grumpy when they are sick or hurting. And her?.......I really feel sorry for the people that take care of her at the nursing home. There is no way that they can be paid enough to compensate for how she treats them. She does not like it at the nursing home. She does not like the food. She is mad at the diet her illness requires her to be on.

All of this makes me sad. Because I can remember a few of those rare times when I was a kid and she would do something nice for me. Her mental illness took everything from her.

And it took her away from me.