Update: Problems with mom · 6:49pm Jul 28th, 2022
For those of you who may be wondering, I've taken a bit of a break for health reasons. Sleep apnea has been kicking my ass for far too long, that and the stress of dealing with my mother. My mother is a bit of a hypochondriac... and a massive Karen. Living with her has been monumentally taxing and stressful, but she is my only family I have left and I need her financial help to survive. Ain't no place cheap to live right now and boxes on the street don't come with wifi. Not yet, anyway.
Recently, mother has, or at least believes she has, developed some sort of bizarre skin/autoimmune disorder. She is completely convinced that she has multiple sclerosis and scleroderma. To be fair, her parents did have a form of sclerosis listed when they passed, but she recently had a blood test for presence of sclerosis and scleroderma and they both came back negative.
My mother is as of this time, making my life a living hell. She's childish, paranoid, delusional and blames most of her problems, many of which she caused herself, on conspiracy theories. She blames former president Donald Trump, governor Ron DeSantis(who I believe is doing an awesome job), Republicans in general, Christians, men and other things for her problems, believing that somehow, doctors have obtained her voting records and are blacklisting and discriminating against her based on them. There are those on the Right that would refer to this as "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and although it is not a real medical term, it fits this situation perfectly.
It's hellish. She has no concept of independence, and so does not understand why we value conservatism, rights and individual liberty. Personally, I believe Florida is flourishing with conservative leadership and governor Ron DeSantis. I plan on voting for him again. Despite some things I would have done differently- I don't agree with him on every issue, I'd be hard-pressed to find a better politician today than Florida's current governor. Our businesses are thriving, our way of life is free and invigorating, it is pretty close to paradise on Earth here compared to other places, even with all the mosquitos, insanity and swamp ass. I pass by roughly 16 individual swamps on my way to work.
My current state representative is even bipartisan and heavily supports the environment. Things are going great here, just not for my mother, mostly because of herself. She blames people around her for her problems. Just yesterday, her doctor told her to find another doctor, and I don't really blame the doctor. She wants to move, but we don't have the money to do so or a place to move. She's desperate and paranoid and angry and taking it out on everyone but herself.
It's possible that she and her stressful nature, her behavior are what caused her parents to have heart attacks. I don't doubt that it contributed to their deaths at this point. She is such a massive Karen, it's impossible. Whatever sympathy I had for the woman who gave birth to me was exhausted before I became an adult- living with her is out of sheer necessity and whatever love I have left, but no sympathy. I love her the same way a parent would love a lost child, unable to change them or make decisions in their lives for them, someone lost to drug addiction. Powerless to do anything as they slowly destroy themselves, desperate not to go down with them. Refusing to. She's suffered from addiction in the past. I will not allow myself to go down such a path.
In better news, I have been working on some things, including this:
So, I'm doing my best to keep things going. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and I might have been infected with COVID again. Symptoms are weird but rapid test came back negative. I'm doing my best to hang in there, but it has not been easy. I'm hoping things will improve soon, and I'm working towards it.
Damn, I know what you're going through with your mother. I've got a similar situation with a family member of my own. Let me share one experience.
I got called to go over one night at 10pm, he was shaking and running a fever and delerious, couldn't stand up for me to drive him to the ER, then when he started vomiting on himself I bit the bullet and called an ambulance. I stayed with him in the ER until 9am, and I had been relaying his history and medication to the medical staff since he was still delerious and didn't have it written down anywhere "to protect against identity theft".
Turned out to be pneumonia and required a five-day stay. The next day at 1am, he calls me and demands I "talk him down" from walking out the door because he's so angry over every possible little detail. The lunch was late, the IV machine was beeping for five minutes before a nurse checked on it, his bed wasn't the size he wanted so he called the building manager to complain, he didn't believe the doctors about what happened and why he was there, he could hear people talking outside his room; very Karen things. He was also too weak to walk, which made him actually walking out a rather empty threat, but when I told him that he decided I was making excuses for time to rob his house.
After he was discharged, the hospital scheduled some at-home nurse visits to monitor his recovery, and the nurse refused to come back after the first day because he had accused her of stealing all manner of household cleaning items. He'd also called every doctor's number in his phone to "report" her. I got to hear all of this from the hospital because they refused to speak with him any further.
I hope your appointment today went well and it's not Covid again. Also that it's not one of the dozen other minor variations that the media says are everywhere.
As a postscript, I have half of a post written for your last blog that I keep putting off out of fear of not wording it precisely enough. Argh.
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If you've got something to say, say it. That sucks you're going through the same thing with your family member. But hey, at least I know I'm not alone.
If you don't mind me asking, what is the general area in which you live? You can be specific to a region- west, midwest, etc or state. I'm in Florida, if you recall, and I love it here. Mom doesn't though, but she doesn't even know where to go.
Feel free to post whatever you want. My content is free and available, I don't hurt anyone and I don't do anything illegal, so there's no real reason for me not to speak my mind. I'm not going to dox myself or anyone or do anything like that, but I don't really have anything to hide because I don't really have much of anything. One of the benefits to being broke as shit!
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I'm out in the midwest. Florida always sounds like the liveliest place in the country, as well as the craziest and sanest at the same time. I distinctly remember reading in 2020, during the fiery peaceful protests, that while every other state was allowing situations to escalate out of control up to and including areas declaring themselves separate and sovereign states (CHOP/CHAZ), Florida passed a law that decriminalized hitting pedestrians with a car if they were intentionally blocking a highway, or something to that effect.
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I can't speak for everyone here, but I love it. Florida, I believe, is flourishing with conservative leadership. And I've said so multiple times. I don't agree with everything governor DeSantis has done- in fact, I've questioned a lot of it. But then, things got better with him curbing restrictions during COVID and preventing lockdowns. People are happier here, businesses are booming. You can say it's due to tourism or stuff but the Republicans here have allowed the state to flourish when the Democrats and their policies would have hurt us.
It's just the facts that we haven't had all sorts of restrictions and people are better in all walks of life for it. More so than other states.