"Good" Grief

Okay, blog.  I'm ready to talk a little, now.

My mother killed herself on May 5th of this year, just days after my daughter was born.  I will never be able to forget the way my heart sank when I answered the knocking on my door to find two police officers and a chaplain.  I knew exactly what they were going to say, but I didn't want to hear it.  I was too afraid to admit to myself that I already knew what was going on; I had suspected it since the day before, when I called her, and received no answer.

My mom and I had a strained relationship over the past ~18 months or so, mostly because she was experiencing a personality change.  I believe in my heart that she was suffering from early dementia or Alzheimer's.  She was 62 years old.  It was too early for that bullshit, but it was happening before my eyes.  My mother, a master typist and pianist, was writing me hundreds (and yes, literally hundreds) of emails at least weekly, many of which were frighteningly banged out on her keyboard in all caps.

I reached out to family and her friends, begging, pleading for help.  Clearly, something was very wrong.  Many of them agreed, but didn't know what to do, and when I became pregnant they became all the more insistent that I distance myself from her - and when I lost vision in my eye in December because of an MS flare, they were even more assertive in their recommendations.  I couldn't do it.  My sister and my father always had a close connection that I never really could come close to - my dad and I just don't have the same kind of personality.  But my mother and I did.  It was one of the biggest reasons why I was terrified of turning into her (and still am).  So even though it hurt me deeply, even though she said things no mother in her right mind would ever dare to say to their pregnant kid, I soldiered on and kept in contact through my pain and against my family's suggestions.

The last month of my mother's life ushered in a huge change.  She was actually showing her house and wanted to move - this time for real.  Though she wouldn't tell me where she wanted to actually go, which caused some concerns.  At first, her communications with me via email tapered - then, the phone started ringing again.  I hadn't been able to speak on the phone with my mother in almost two years - and I used to call her every day.  Every day.  Think about that.  Suddenly I could keep her on the phone for 15 minutes, then 30, then 45.  I only got hung up on once, and then they started getting better.  It was like my mom was coming out of the fog, and the terrible "Mr. Hyde" that I had to walk on eggshells to avoid was disappearing.

But then it took another turn, and went from bad to worse, but in an entirely different sense.  My mother apologized to me for what she had said.  Said she was "horrified" by what she had said to me, my sister, her sister, and about us all... I told her that I appreciated her apology and I would always love her.  We were making up for lost time, and I was sharing more things about my pregnancy.  Was trying to plan a time for her to come and meet the baby.  Was making plans for a future that would never manifest.

The last week of her life was terrifying.  She called me the day I brought my baby home from the hospital to tell me she thought she needed to be institutionalized.  She said she wanted to give me power of attorney and gave me the contact information for her lawyer (an old family friend, one of the many who told me to distance myself, and I did not obey).  She said she had a plan for getting treatment and we needed to sell the house and put her in a safer place.  Wanted me to plan for where her pets would go if she needed emergency treatment.  Then she started hinting that she knew something was terribly wrong with her brain.

Mom taught me over many years that mental illness was nothing to be ashamed of, that it was just as real and just as valid as cancer, and should be treated.  She took Prozac and self medicated with marijuana.  My sister had to take St. John's Wort growing up, and my depression was so mild in comparison that it was largely ignored.  As an adult, I have had my ups and downs, and chose to get treatment and never regretted that.  But suddenly mom was very against the allegation that she had a mental illness, particularly over the time frame where there was this "personality change" - it was offensive to her to make the suggestion.

But when she called me that last week, she was insistent that something was wrong.  She told me she had a diagnosis - Adjustment Disorder.  Sounds about right - and might even be a further manifestation of Borderline Personality Disorder, which I am convinced my mother had.  I always felt she had that, though I didn't know its name until about 7 years ago.  She fit the bill.  Monday before she died, she was lost not far from her home.  I called her a tow truck because her car broke down.  30 minutes later, she called and said I needed to call her an ambulance.  I talked her down, the tow truck arrived, and she made it home.  Seemed all the better for it.  I told her I was working on a home for the dogs - and I called my father.  I didn't want to get him involved, but I had to.

That Monday night she and I spoke on the phone for a long time ... almost two hours.  It was during this phone call that she made the first even remotely suggestive hints that she was feeling suicidal.  It wasn't even something that she said - it was more a feeling that I had.  She was talking about being a burden to the family, and how she felt that people who were getting progressively worse had a duty to die to help their loved ones.  I reiterated that she was worth taking care of and that it was my job to do so - that how she felt about me as her daughter and how she wanted to take care of me, was how I felt about taking care of her.  I suggested to Steve that she was sounding "awfully suicidal, and it's scaring me."  He asked if she had any outright threats or suggestions - and I said no.

I asked her to write down affirmations that she was "worth taking care of" daily, in the same way I do on my Positivity Blog.  She said she would do it.  She kept mentioning that she had a doctor's appointment on Thursday and I said I wanted her to discuss all these concerns with her doctor and definitely get evaluated for more mental stuff, if it was due to medication or something else (while she did not tell me that she stopped taking marijuana edibles, she did tell her cousin this, and I worry that the withdrawal had as much of a negative effect as taking the drugs did.  We'll never know).

The next day, Tuesday, she called me three times in an hour, I was getting my daughter ready for her first check up and we were already late and I had gotten no sleep.  She said I needed to rehome the dogs "today."  I couldn't process what she was saying and asked my sister to call her and help.  No answer.  She called about an hour later and said she was better and things were fine.  I should have probed more.

Wednesday was the last time I spoke with mom.  She called and asked me outright if I thought she had Borderline.  I said, it's possible.  But now that she was apologizing and being self-aware, that negated that suggestion.  I told her that I was worried about her because she believed she was very sick, and gave me a reason to worry as well.  I didn't ask her what gave her that impression.  She kept saying that "it isn't curable, there is no treatment," and I said if she had a Personality Disorder that she did not need to be fixed - that it was more a characteristic of her personality if she was nitpicky (yet) and overly sensitive (yes).  She was a Cancer sun and a Cancer moon - combination rife with over-emotion.  I told her that I loved her, that she didn't need to be fixed.  I kept saying that.  I said I wanted her to get evaluated for memory issues and we would develop a plan.  That there was no "right answer" here.  That we would get her help and it would be alright.

She said her realtor was on the other line.  I told her I loved her.  And that was the end.

Thursday I got a box in the mail from my mom - the only thing I'd received in over a year.  No birthday gift or card last year, nothing at Christmas, nothing when I announced my pregnancy.  This box had our family photo albums and my baby things.  A couple of dresses that she kept saying she was going to send to me as well as some random clothing from her closet.  Shoes from when I was a kid.

Heartache and tears in a box, essentially.

I called after opening it, while sobbing openly on my way to get the rest of the mail (baby blues makes you cry at everything) and she didn't answer the phone.  I didn't know if she was at her appointment or not.  But I got no answer.  I had a feeling I should have called a welfare check on her right then and there.  But I didn't.  And now I know she died on Thursday.  I'm too scared to ask if they have any idea what time.  If there was a chance that she heard the phone ring and chose not to answer.  Or worse - if she could hear it while she was dying and couldn't answer me.

I am forever haunted by these thoughts.  I can't stop thinking about it.  It's all I can do to just get through my day without breaking down.  I have a 3 1/2 week old daughter to take care of and I can't focus on a damn thing.  I can't even focus on my precious girl.  I hate mom for doing this to me when she did, just after my baby was born and three days before Mothers' Day.  Way to fucking ruin it, Mom.  Half the family thinks you did it on purpose as a final "fuck you" directly to me.  But I know that it wasn't the case, I KNOW that it wasn't the case.  I know you thought you were helping me.  I know you thought it was best to do something while you felt you had the control to do so.  But I didn't get to say goodbye.  My daughter never got to meet you.  And now she's starting to look like you and I can't keep it together.  It's robbing her of real time and connection with me while I am still in "shock" and "denial" phases of this.

My sister is going to Colorado, as I am still in California and can't very well leave with an infant at home right now - either for me or for her or my husband.  It just wouldn't work.  But she is going to be dealing with her house and home.  She is going through her closet, through her shed, deciding what to keep and how the hell we'll keep it.  My dad is suggesting he move into her house and keep the dogs - and I can't let him live there.  I couldn't visit him knowing that my mother died there.  And I wouldn't be willing to deal with the haunting that would surely follow by allowing him to do it when I know how she felt about him in the end, haha.

I am mad that I can't be there.  I was the one who was so insistent for the past two years that she was sick, no one believed me, my sister didn't even believe me when I told her that last week that something was very wrong and she wasn't just trying to take attention away from me and the baby.  And now I can't help her when she really needs me to - I can't be there to put her things away, to make sure her ashes are spread with our dog Lucky's fur, or with my deceased sister's hair.  I know more details about her passing from the detective than I want to know.  And they haunt me.  All these things just terrify me and won't go away.  I am so mad that I can't be there to go through her closet and her bookshelf, even though she was such a heavy smoker that I likely couldn't keep anything anyway.  That I have to trust my sister not to ruin anything or trash things I would otherwise keep.

I am so angry.  I am so angry that I can't just do this one last thing for her.  I can't even be there for her fucking memorial because I live too far away.  It's just torture and it isn't fair.  It isn't fair!

I feel guilty for feeling like she sounded suicidal on Monday, when I had never heard her like that before.  But how was I supposed to know she was even capable of such a thing?  Or had thought about it for more than a few days?  I trusted her when she said she was going to the doctor.  Everything was riding on that doctor's appointment.  And I know she didn't go - her car, the one I called the tow for on Monday, was still in the shop on Friday when the cops came to my door.  The bill was paid - and she had no intention of picking it up.

My mother always said it was cruel to have children too close together because then your kids don't feel like they got "enough of mom" before the next one came to take their place on the lap.  She was very adamant about this.  You have to give your kids a chance to feel like they got enough of mom.  They have to be ready to be done with her before welcoming more babies.

I miss you, mom.  I need you.  I wasn't done with you yet.

So now what ... now I am still waiting for my MRI to evaluate my disease.  I am having MS hugs again.  My eyesight has gotten worse, confirmed yesterday, so new glasses it is.  I am changing my hair on Saturday because I have to be in control of something - and my hair usually gets beat up when I feel like this.  I don't know how to give my baby more of my heart because it feels so torn.  I am so distracted.  I feel like I'm robbing my daughter of my focus and attention because I can't stop thinking about this.  How can I?  I spent 28 years of my life in an abusive relationship with my mother - if I could turn it off, and go "no contact," even forced no contact like this, I would have fucking done it.  She's gone, and I still feel the guilt, and still feel lost.

Now the few friends who know that she passed occasionally ask me how I'm doing.  I want to be diplomatic and not sound too pathetic.  I say I am "surviving," "doing ok," can't bring myself to say my usual response of "hanging in there" because it feels like a goddamned trigger.  Which it is.  Everything around me feels like a trigger.  I thought my friend getting shot in the back of the head was the worst trauma I could experience - I was wrong, this is, the only thing worse than this is if something happens to my kid.

FUCK.

I don't want to be diplomatic about it more than I have to be, but it feels rude to tell people, "Oh, you know, my mother killed herself.  And I have to go back to work in a week because I'm fucking broke and because my daughter was 10 days overdue that means I only got 4 weeks with her, so I am far from being ready.  Oh, and my chronic disease is making me feel like my stomach is being turned inside out every few hours.  So, you know, I kinda feel like dying, because I can't handle all my responsibilities."  This was supposed to be a break that would allow me to focus on my kid and myself and healing.  And instead, I'm having to mix bereavement, distance estate finances, struggle to actually communicate with my sister because there is obvious tension, etc etc etc., all with maternity.

The cruel part is my sister is taking care of this, and it's appropriate because she is the older one of us.  But mom asked me to be her power of attorney.  I feel like I'm being robbed of these responsibilities.  It isn't my sister's fault.  She didn't do anything wrong.  I know she is stepping up now because she didn't when I kept asking her to while mom was living.  And I know she is feeling guilty and won't talk to me about it.  But I hate that I had to tell my sister, harshly, that she couldn't do this to me.  I had to explicitly tell my own sister that if she commits suicide, I would never forgive her.  How fucked up is this??

Wake me when this is all over.

Stresses.

Did you know I had a baby six days ago?

She was born at 4:04 AM on the 30th of April, after 28 long, hard hours of labor.  She is beautiful. She's absolutely perfect.  Not a huge fusser, my husband is being amazing, my breast milk has come in and she eats very well (an extreme amount today, in fact).  I am able to pump and store before going back on MS medications.  Nevertheless, labor was intense, and I am still in a fair amount of pain.  I'm still bleeding.  I worry about what the stress of all this will do to my MS.

Did you know my mother killed herself yesterday?

I can't even begin to describe my despair.

Love to all,
MSloan