Random Thoughts

Yesterday's "One Day at a Time" page reminds us to separate the alcoholic's disease from the alcoholic as a person. I'm supposed to remember that my mother's disease makes her crazy, but she still has a lot of good qualities. This is true, and I've spent a lot of my life saying "Well to me she's a b****, but professionally she's a great person. Look at all the people she has helped..." Um yeah, but you know what? She's not my boss. She's not my coworker. She's my mom, and if I don't detach myself from her and set boundaries, I destroy myself. So for me, I have to remember that although she has the ability to be a great, generous, gifted person the side of her that I'm most likely to see is the one that destroys families and friends, and rips lives apart. Doesn't matter how wonderful she is, to me she's poison.

Another Al-Anon thing that I was reminded of today, probably on someone else's blog or in another AlAnon book, is that we need to keep the focus on ourselves. I shouldn't be focused on the crazy things my mother has done recently. I should be focused on myself and how I work my own program. This is very true. It doesn't matter that my mother threw my brother's stuff out onto her lawn in a cheap plastic bag. It matters that my husband and I decided to go and get my brother's things, and attempt to make contact with him. Rather than ignore the situation, which was my first impulse, we decided to take action to help the other Adult Child of an Alcoholic in my mother's life. I don't know if my brother will appreciate the gesture or not, but we tried to rescue his military uniform at least. When my mom quizzed me about it on Saturday though, I dodged. I couldn't tell her yet that we had taken the stuff. I felt like I was stealing, not rescuing, although I know it was the right thing to do. I just wasn't ready to be on her bad side yet.

For some reason I am still trying to get her approval in some weird way. I haven't seen her since the funeral, but I've spoken to her on the phone, and she's as crazy as ever. So why am I "kissing up"?

During the week my mom called repeatedly asking me to return grandma's earrings that she'd given me. On Saturday I sent my husband to drop them off since he was passing her apartment anyway. Turns out they weren't what she was looking for. She accused me of holding out, called me up and said "where is the rest of it?" I reminded her that she hadn't given me anything else. That she had in fact refused to give me any other jewelry. She backed off pretty quickly and admitted that she hadn't looked through her stuff yet, she just assumed I had it. Then she asked me how to clean a jewelry box. How would I know that? I've never owned one. So things are edgy.

Now I have a name and phone number of an acquaintance who said she'd be willing to give my mom some doctor's names etc. locally. Do I call my mom tonight with the info? Or not? We'll see. She probably won't be very grateful for it, but I tried to help her out.

Keeping the focus on myself. My mom will always be crazy. How I interact with her is my program. Or how I detach myself too. It's too bad that things can't be better between us. When it comes time for her funeral some day, if I outlive her, I will manage to stay positive and say good things about her. Right now though, it's hard to separate the addict from the addiction. Now that my grandmother is gone, walls will probably go up and my mom and I will be playing some sort of game as we get near the holidays. Neither of us quite saying what we really want to say. Sad, but true.