Need to Vent

My mother.  She’s 73 years old.  She’s a widow.  She’s on oxygen. She’s supporting my niece and her two kids, and her house is a circus.  She’s stressed.  I get it.

She comes from along line of alcoholics.  When I was a teen, she and my stepdad were always drinking.  If my mom was slurring her words, my anxiety would skyrocket.  It was not uncommon for them to physically fight. As the oldest, I felt it my responsibility to protect my siblings.  We spent many nights huddled in my bedroom trembling and crying and hoping it would be over soon.

Meth was also part of their routine.  There were times I thought she hated me.  I would have panic attacks as the school day was ending because I never knew what to expect at home.

There came a day when my mom realized what she was doing to us kids, and she got clean.  She gave step-dad a choice: drugs or us?

He chose us.

Healing wasn’t instant.  It has taken years for us to get to a place where we could speak openly about those times, but eventually we could.  In the meantime, we kids grew up and started our own families.  Holidays were wonderful.  My parents had created a wonderland in the back yard.  There was a trampoline, a swing that also turned on a pivot.  There were climbing structures and a play house.  There was also an enclosed porch where we adults would gather around the food and laugh and watch the kids.  They are some of the best memories I have.

And now that step-dad, who I have considered my dad for years, now, has passed away, mom is miserable.  And she’s drinking, again.  Slurred speech is a trigger for me.

Yesterday she fell twice.  She bashed her head.

I’m angry.  I’m so angry – not just because she should take better care of herself, but because she knows what it does to me.  To us.  To all of us.  Does that make me selfish?