snakemeetsunicorn-blog

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Text Conversation with a friend (My Half)

Hi. Are you busy? Something insane just happened Short version: I had to push hard against the bathroom door to keep Mom from busting - then had to lock it I was in the miss of cleaning myself up. She’s mentally very ill - thinking is happening in another dimension. She was trying to tell me something, impart something about something in the neighborhood- NOT pertinent or urgent. I asked her if we could do this later. She imperiously said there is no later. I said, “PLEASE…” She came right up to the door and kept ramping up with her monologue. I flipped on the vent and heater fans to drown her out. That’s when the door opened and the hand came in, feeling against the wall for the switch. I was naked from the waist down. I’m a grown man and had to push with all my might. She’s strong like a bull, whatever her aches and pains My heart was pounding with anger and alarm. I shouted, “you’re insane, go away!” I think the goal was to bust down any boundaries or walls preventing her from forcing anither person- especially me - from letting her connet with and dominate and consume him. She has a pathological inability to recognise boundaries and MUST get inside and own another person’s world. It shoukd not even have begun. Sane adults don’t talk to people in the bathroom. She wont take polite denial or adamant denial easily. She gets fruatrated, angry. I started scrambling mentally - can i rent a hostel room, etc?? No, I cant… I’d better go. Need to decompress before bed… See the picture: An old woman shouting at her grown son angrily to listen to her while hes in the loo, then furiously trying to oush the door open. Mental illness. I love my job.

…. And I forgive my mother. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Text Conversation with a friend (My Half)

Hi. Are you busy? Something insane just happened Short version: I had to push hard against the bathroom door to keep Mom from busting - then had to lock it I was in the miss of cleaning myself up. She's mentally very ill - thinking is happening in another dimension. She was trying to tell me something, impart something about something in the neighborhood- NOT pertinent or urgent. I asked her if we could do this later. She imperiously said there is no later. I said, "PLEASE..." She came right up to the door and kept ramping up with her monologue. I flipped on the vent and heater fans to drown her out. That's when the door opened and the hand came in, feeling against the wall for the switch. I was naked from the waist down. I'm a grown man and had to push with all my might. She's strong like a bull, whatever her aches and pains My heart was pounding with anger and alarm. I shouted, "you're insane, go away!" I think the goal was to bust down any boundaries or walls preventing her from forcing anither person- especially me - from letting her connet with and dominate and consume him. She has a pathological inability to recognise boundaries and MUST get inside and own another person's world. It shoukd not even have begun. Sane adults don't talk to people in the bathroom. She wont take polite denial or adamant denial easily. She gets fruatrated, angry. I started scrambling mentally - can i rent a hostel room, etc?? No, I cant... I'd better go. Need to decompress before bed... See the picture: An old woman shouting at her grown son angrily to listen to her while hes in the loo, then furiously trying to oush the door open. Mental illness. I love my job.

.... And I forgive my mother. She doesn't know what she's doing.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Composed Last Night as I Lay

My bowels are full, and they won’t empty. My scalp is like a drum skin, and sleep won’t come. My body is vibrating like a wasp’s nest, and I cry out like ten thousand tigers set ablaze. My mind is racing, and it is slipping through my fingers.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Composed Last Night as I Lay

My bowels are full, and they won't empty. My scalp is like a drum skin, and sleep won't come. My body is vibrating like a wasp's nest, and I cry out like ten thousand tigers set ablaze. My mind is racing, and it is slipping through my fingers.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

I’ve been looking to get colostomy surgery for sometime.  I believe that the neuromuscular condition that makes my bowel movements such operas can certainly be healed - at least, that things can be repaired to allow enough function to make life bearable - but this will be a long journey.  In the meantime, I need some relief to make life bearable.  A colostomy bag would remove most of the work of what ought to be an autonomic bodily function and afford more freedom.  But a colorectal surgeon here has refused, citing that I am not a typical candidate for a colostomy bag, citing that I have neither colon cancer or Crohn’s disease and that, since my colon is not diseased, that I must focus on the root neuromuscular condition - and that I’ll be fine.  I disagree with his treatment plan.  I contacted a prominent hospital in Tijuana, state-of-the-art and very popular with American medical tourists.  They would be happy to do the procedure for a fee: $6,850 cash.  Sure - I’ll just cough that up.  While I’m at it, I’ll buy Brazil.  I’ll have the Amazon all to myself.  

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

The Soprano and the Water Glass

I’d had a particularly gnarly adventure in the bathroom - whips and chains, acid and tar, screams of demons and plunging down waterfalls riding logs - and I was rather wiped out and shaken.  i was in the midst of getting a meal together to ground myself, breathing slowly and shallowly, trying to recollect my soul, when Mom came down the stairs and into the kitchen.  

She walked by me and asked, “How are you doing?  Are you alright?”

In such a fragile state at that precise moment, the sound of her voice - the high C of a woman who’d given so much life and care mingled with poison and hate - broke my glass container, and the waters all poured out.  I was sobbing, sputtering, a suddenly incoherent mess.  

She was in a mode of tenderness.  “Are you crying because you’re in pain?”

I didn’t answer.  I heard her, and I only kept on sailing the River Jordan.  How can I respond to such a question?  How can I anymore entertain vulnerability - through the clarity and nakedness of verbal expression of feeling - with a woman who has so often mewed and cooed at my pain, wishing me wellness and peace, then only to slice me a new side wound with her teeth or claws out in defense and rage?  It’s not possible anymore.  I recognize her mental illness; and yet, its expressions  and currents are the reality that I am forced to pilot.  

But she had asked a question, and I am bound by my expressiveness and honesty to answer.  Internally, to myself, I said this:

I have just been through Hell again.  And there come times when, confronted in a sudden vision with the full expanse of your suffering, beholding the map of the whole country of it all, seeing everything at once that you as a single creature has experienced, you are filled with horror and overwhelmed by it.  The sadness and despair and pain.  And you burst forth.  That was my explanation, which I kept in my heart.

As I was not forthcoming with an explanation for my state, she quietly continued to the refrigerator, took what she was after, and returned upstairs, mostly likely in combined respect for my pain and fear of digging further.  I sniffed, pulled myself together, and kept cooking.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Today, I found the apple juice I’d put in the freezer in a stainless steel bowl out on the counter.  The juice was defrosted, a cool amber pool in its vessel.  Something that someone places in the freezer one generally wants frozen.  Understandably, I was irked.  After countless instances of having something of mine moved or thrown out without any notice, explanation, apology, or responsibility taken for the disregard, I became agitated.  My mistake was talking about it.   I asked my mother, seated blithely out of touch with any disharmony, attention on the crossword puzzle, why this juice was out.  She responded that there was no room in the freezer for her frozen grocery she’d brought home - three TV dinners - with a big metal bowl taking up so much space.  

“So, you just take it out and leave it on the counter to melt?”  I asked.  

“I didn’t know what it was,” she said.

“Because it was in your way - and because you didn’t know what it was - you take something that belonged to someone else, which he wanted frozen, out of the freezer and leave it out?  Without even asking or telling him?”  

She held to her right to do so based on the premise that something unidentifiable and that occupies space ought to have the plug pulled on it.  And I called this wanton disrespect.  Confronted undeniably with rude and low behavior, she tends to feel cornered and becomes dangerous.  At this point, she plied her favorite counterargument, that we are not equals, that this is her house, and that she owes me nothing.  I felt rumblings begin to brew within her, but - shaking - I felt compelled to speak my peace.  Juice taken out of the freezer and left to defrost once is thoughtless, but trivial; a history of this compounds the frustration, and how not apologizing or, if it were a mistake, not taking responsibility added pride and malice, as though retroactively being glad - over and over - to upend someone else’s life.  (Again, juice is juice - and behavior is behavior.)  

I heard from her a usual kind of expansion on her defense - how I get everything for free and that I take advantage; consequently, I’m not entitled to consideration.  

I firmly, clearly stated that this kind of thoughtlessness equated gross disrespect to me and that I did not want it to happen again.

She turned to me: “Why do you deserve respect?”

I: “Because I’m a human being, just like you.  That’s why.”

It seemed now, according to her assessment, that I was the one showing gross disrespect, a hurt she didn’t deserve.  But it was she, I said, who, whenever faced with doing something unkind or thoughtless, turned her anger upon the other party and accused him or her of having committed a great sin and being to blame for his or her own misfortune to boot - a defense of deeply twisted psychological manipulation - sickening in its lowness and almost effective, unless you’ve been the object of it enough times in 36 years to see the pattern with tiresome clarity.  

Somewhere in all this were mixed in the following phrases from her:

“You piece of shit.”

“You moron.”

“You’re not my son.”

I had said all that I had to say.  The wound was stinging pretty nastily, but it was time to let go.  After cooling off and eating my lunch, I found there was one thing left, so I said it.

“I don’t take advantage,” I started.  “I gratefully take what I’m given - and that I know is charity.”

Her eyes twitched.  She was silent.  I went upstairs.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Disturbance, Pt. 3

I thought I'd indulge in a mid-morning snack (nuts and raisins, the caviar of the modest) when the gastrointestinal drama reawakened for another act. I was trying to quietly contain the pain while managing the muscle pulses need to bring it on home (leading me to the toilet with success). Naturally, because God recognized this was a weekday and had no intent to let me out of school, my mother started slogging downstairs into the kitchen. I'd heard the huffing and puffing and uneven thuds as she labored to drag her pained, arthritic, sadly heavy body down the hallway above and towards the staircase as she made her morning start, I praying silently, illogically that she would not continue with her difficult but unstoppable routine trajectory. I was biting my lip, squeezing my eyes shut - both to manage my growing bodily rigors and to psychically will her from coming, move the asteroid off course. And, out of the corner of my peeking right eye, I saw the fuzzy-socked feet making their way my way, large-boned hands both gripping the stair rail for support. "Oh... OK," I thought to myself. She saw me. Cheerily, she called out, "Hello there! How are you?" unable as usual to recognize the subtleties of another person's emotional state, low empathy a symptom of the marriage of natal narcissism and advancing cognitive impairment. I didn't answer; things internally were brewing and I didn't have the wherewithal. She picked up a mug from the table and approached me, I in my poor choice standing right by the coffee maker. I was starting to panic now. Pain - distraction - mother... I prayed it would all stop, couldn't think of how to move myself out of the situation - frozen, like a rabbit in a thicket with hunters getting near, heart pounding and ready to explode. She came right up to me now and, stretching out her mug, asked innocently, "Could you pour me some coffee?" And I popped. The fear and panic bubbling over, I shouted, "NO!" She startles easily, and she screamed and jumped back. "I don't understand... I just don't understand... Can you help me understand...?" she repeated. I'd short-circuited her ability to compute illogical and sudden events, and she was struggling to grasp what was happening. I couldn't respond rationally at that point. I grabbed my snacks and cellphone (for reasons I can't fully explain myself) and high-tailed it into the bathroom, rabbit flushed from the thicket to his warren. I was leaning over the sink, trying to collect myself and resume what had been consuming me before, when I heard loud noises from the kitchen. She usually reacts to startling, confusing unpleasantness with frantically productive behavior, usually cleaning - and I think now she was putting away pots and pans like the world was ending. The racket was causing a pounding inside my head. I was loosing sense of myself. It was building and reaching crescendo- and I burst out again, in full voice, "Stop!" Instantly, she roared back with deep and throaty staccato fury, "WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU??" The dragon had heard me. It was second time this week she'd employed that exact phrase, intonation, and volume to silence my disturbance. I did not respond. Shaken, angry, cramping, but still focused, I grounded myself and refocused on the physical matter at hand; this was priority. When I reemerge do later, I asked her why she'd done that. It was unwise; I knew it would likely not lead to a polite heart-to-heart and the fruits of shared understanding. But I had to try. I asked her why she thought it good and just to scream and curse at someone who was obviously in distress. As I knew instinctively, the whole thing went to heck in my hands, devolving into a fight of her defensive denial and vicious retorts. On one level, she really was incapable of seeing my state and her actions and if understanding what is an appropriate response. However, with enough reasoning, she is still perfectly cognitively fit to grasp human emotions, to think through a response, and perform an examination of conscience; she was simply refusing to do so. Ultimately, I abandoned the conversation I'd started under my own bad advice and went out for the day.we didn't talk much when I got home. The next morning, When I came down to the kitchen at dawn, I flipped on the lights,and, there, at my feet, in the glue mouse trap that my mother had set for the vermin that had been making inroads this winter, I spotted a small gray-brown body, almost imperceptibly pulsating. The poor creature was trapped in the black goo like a saber-toothed tiger in a tar pit, extinction immanent. I was consumed with horror. I can recall very few other times in my life when I was filled with such black sickness not be holding an animal in such grotesque pain. I recognized the rapidly inflating and deflating abdomen, the heart beating a mile a minute in terror within, the creature trapped in black mire in this house. My heart sank into my stomach, and organ began digesting brother organ. I had been complicit in the scheme to exterminate the vermin, and now I was only moved entirely by urgency to do something about what I saw. I picked up the mouse and trap and tried to pry one from the other, gently; I couldn't. Time was ticking. I though to use vinegar to try dissolving the glue; it wasn't working. As I tried feverishly to loosen the mouse's flank from the insoluble mire, its eyes bugged out, and the beating stopped. I need to stop trying in this house and let things be.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Text correspondence with a friend, 1/19/16

I: I'm having really bad hyperglycemia and muscle spasms after breakfast. They're feeding each other. The food that I ate is racing through my intestines and I'm having a really bad panic attack - crying and screaming and flailing and pounding the counter and stomping and hitting myself and I'm in Hell -and this is not the first time. I'm sorry - I just really needed to reach out to someone. I'm so sorry for overwhelming you. I'm sorry. He: Mike - sorry, I'm just seeing this. Please don't be sorry. I'm glad you reached out. I pray that you get lifted out of this physical and emotional Hell. Is there anything I can do for you today? I: Thank you. Just keep me in your thoughts. He: I will. I do.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Disturbance, pt. 1

The heat of summer tends to heighten emotions - but I wish I could say that the events of this story could be blamed on a rising mercury.

After dinner one sultry eve, I’d begun to feel a tell-tale pressure and intense cramping in my bowels.  Knowing the reign of terror in my body that would soon follow, I dragged myself upstairs to my room, where I could moan and wail and get through the storm alone - hopefully without disturbing my mother.  I shut the door, leaned over my bed, and let the rains come.

This one was particularly from Hell.  The alternative weakness and cramping in my muscles that simultaneously drives my colon to pulsate and throb while not allowing any release or relief had hardly ever some with such vehemence.  Holding my abdomen, I was reeling and contorting, asking God, loudly and between choked sobs and gutteral animal noises,  why this was happening. Soon, it was escalating, and I was losing control.  A conscious person in ordinary events would avoid disturbing others at all costs; when pain eclipses reason, all sense of propriety ebbs from your body, along with strength and hope.  I was giving a Wagnerian soprano a run for her money.  

Then there was a frantic and forceful knocking at my door.  “ARE YOU OK?”  Guess who.  I didn’t answer.  When I get into that state, talking distracts me from focusing on the muscle-isolating maneuvers and manipulations I need to do to get through everything in one piece, and the energy-expenditure of civil conversation in the midst of the storm tends to make me feel worse.  (It astounds her that I never seem to be up for a chat when I feel like Sub-Saharan feces.)  When she go no response the first time, she pounded on the door again and repeated her query.  Again, I stayed unresponsive - perhaps ultimately unwise.  The next moment, she opened the door wide and, in full voice, demanded to know what was going on.  I was making a racket; so much for the ruse of maternal concern.  I summoned up all control to respond in a measured but weak voice that I needed to be alone - please.  It was as if I’d said nothing: she demanded again to know what the matter was, as if the sight of me doubled over my bed in agony with tears wetting my beard wasn’t sufficient explanation.  I repeated my request: “Please - just shut the door and leave me alone.  Please...”  

My mother is not one to be put off lightly, no matter the needs of another, as she cannot see them when her vision becomes clouded by offense.  Perceiving herself the object of an unjust dismissal and an uncooperative 12-year-old offspring, she took a turn towards the adversarial.  “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong!”  She was now officially out of bounds.  

And I, succumbing to pain and frustration, followed the beat of the drum.  “Go away!  Just shut the door and go - away!”  

Unsurprisingly, she refused.  I should think, in hindsight, that I would have learned by now how to respond with awareness of her spinning-top mechanism in a way that ends the scene quickly, without confrontation.  But I choose pride and righteousness and some notion of self-protection, sending up my lightning rod to bring the tower tumbling down.  The above exchange continued for a few more rounds, when, at her final insistence that I “share” with her, I screamed, “I’m in pain!”  There was not a little bit of accusation of insensitivity in my tone...

She answered back, face like a Balinese mask, bizarre and cartoonish, “GOOD.”

I was hurt, stunned, amazed.  Overcome by emotion, I let spill out what I’d thought a few times already. “You’re a horrible person.”

Without missing a beat, she said this: “Yes I am!  And that’s why you’re here!”  Not only is this a demonic and mean thing to say, but it doesn’t even make sense.  Here came one of those quiet spaces that occur in the heat of the moment, when the storm stands still, and an angel of the Lord descends into the eye of it to offer you a scroll, and you unroll it to read a crystal-clear delineation of the madness swirling about you.  This time, it read, “Remember and see - your mother is mentally ill.”  But, though I had read the truth of it, my head was still reeling from the preceding.  I followed her down the hallway to the bathroom, where she had now fled in a smoke of denying the situation, occupying herself with her bedtime ablutions.  I asked her if I could now talk to her and explain my situation - as though I could magically impose reason on this trans-dimensional unravelling.  She said, “You wanted me to go away and leave you alone.  So I did.”  Her tone had turned cold and glib on a dime.  And the blazes of passion leapt up around me again.  

“I hate you,” I said.  

I instantly felt remorse for what I’d said, but it was too late.  I’d been cornered and baited, and I took the bait.  I went to my room, shut the door, and gave over to tears again.  Eventually, my body found relief, and I went to bed.

Two weeks later, we were in the car (I’ve since learned to politely demure from her offers of transportation), when the situation came up again.  We’d gotten into some trivial argument over driving directions, and she said she felt hurt because I didn’t like her.  

“What?”  I asked, completely flummoxed.

“You said you hate me.”  Oh, that.  

“Yes, I did say that,” I responded, “because I told you I was in pain, and you said, ‘Good.’”

Her back arched indignantly, in shock.  “I never said that!”

I repeated that she had, and she denied it all the same, completely and utterly.  She could not believe that I was claiming such a thing.  The force with which she rejected this troubling recount was major.  I looked at her face.  Lines around her eyes told a mixed story of concern, disbelief, confusion, horror, anger at the insulting and preposterous accusation, and wondering and wandering far off...

I have learned since then, but only by a few degrees.  I don’t bring up the past or accuse her - or talk to her much at all.  But I still feel free to moan and wail with total self-indulgence when I am in pain.  I admit that it’s with a certain percentage of disregard for others around me - mainly my mother elsewhere in the house.  This self-indulgence is a bad choice, because it disturbs her, and then I pay.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Once, when I was in the ninth grade, I brought home a bad report card.  I suppose the upheaval from our family being forced to move (right at the time that the hormonal storm of puberty was short-circuiting my motivation and concentration) was taking a toll on my performance at school.  Whatever the reason was, my mother wasn’t didn’t care to know it.  Everything is a blur - from her opening the envelope, scanning down the list of dangerously disappointing marks, and opening up her own voluminous envelope of fury, like a hurricane without the early warning: Inexcusable - awful -  what was the matter with me?  At the peak of her screaming, all action slowed for a moment as she wound up for the coup de grace.  Lightning struck her, her gaze was directed to the far distance, her arm flew up, and it struck me across the face with unrestrained force - the shot heard ‘round the house.  Blood came streaming down my face like school children rushing out after the bell, down onto my white uniform shirt.  I was frozen with terror, the wind knocked out of me, I trying to understand in the space of three long seconds what had just happened and why.  But I was only stunned for so long before I started to cry and ran upstairs.  

I found my sister at the top of the staircase.  She put her arms around me and, saying nothing, just held me like that for a moment.  I went to my room.  I think She went downtstairs to talk to the perpetrator, but I don’t recall clearly.

My mother rejects the veracity of this - and all such instances from our childhood - absolutely.  When she does this, her eyes get big with incredulity and she huffs and snorts.  She might say, “SORRY - that never happened.”  I don’t think she’s lying.  I believe that this is denial in the pathological degree.  Subconsiously, all instances of hitting and screaming are so terrible to her when faced by her soul, where reason and compassion and remorse live in twilight forever, unable to be killed by even the most virulent mental illness.  She is aware of the pain that we experienced as a family - and for which she was sadly responsible.  And she checks out.  The pain and burden of accepting her actions is too great.  She has never had the strength of soul to take herself through self-honesty, moral inventory, contrition, and redemption - not on her own.  Her parents didn’t teach her, and she wasn’t born with those gifts, like I was.  So, then, to defend herself from the searing of the soul from beholding the horrors of the past, she surrenders more and more of her consciousness with time, so that memory would fade.  mute the sounds, turn down the brightness, until the signal is imperceptible.  

But the baby has been thrown out with the bath water.  Perhaps there’s a connection between the neglect and rejection (as in parenthood) of her memories and the deterioration of her cognition as a whole; one may have encouraged the other.  Early Alzheimer’s (my leading theory) started setting in a few years back.  She can’t remember things from my childhood or from yesterday or a three hours ago.  Even more tricky, she has a tendency to fabricate all new memories to fill in the chinks, like caulking up bathroom tile, and sloppily.  The realities she subconsciously invents to bridge past and present and thus create a cohesive stream of events that she can reference can be as bizarre and illogical and head-screwing as any of her conscious actions in response to what confuses and upsets her.  And if you innocently and foolishly challenge these realities, believing yourself to be a noble knight of truth and clarity, you will face the dragon.  It's bigger than you and the horse you rode in on, and that’s a fact.  You’ll get smacked - in words, or possibly with fists and objects, even in old age.  You’ll be called insane, horrible, hateful - and with enough surety and vehemence as to get you to question your mental function yourself, even if only for a moment.  That moment, where you freeze and wonder how you got there and how you were laid so open to such pain, reminds you that this cycle lives for as long as she does and perpetuates her own dysfunction and decline.  The only way to break to break it is to leave the den - and to forgive.  Directing this wish for peace to you both is the only was to truly free yourself.  In the bargain, you’ll help release the dragon from itself as well, and she will thank you from Heaven.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Saint John Vianney often shared with his intimates the regular experience of tortures from the devil - a nightly opera for 35 years of his life. Being dragged around the room by invisible hands, harassed by bizarre noises and juvenile name-calling, and even the bed catching fire - all were routine. A friend once asked him, "Weren't you afraid?" "One gets used to everything," was the saint's sleepy reply. I totally relate.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

She picked up the telephone book and swiftly took her arm back to throw it at me, eyes wild with rage and nostrils flaring, when I wrested it from her hand.  Here we were, my mother and I in the hallway, she getting physical with me for the first time in 18 years (this did happen once before in adulthood).  I could have hardly believed before this moment that events in this house would ever get crazier - and I was shown what was possible.

I had been in the bathroom upstairs with the door shut, wall heater on.  On a cold day like this, there are few places I can go to stay warm, and this was one of them.  The house never had central heating, is always freezing during the winter.  In years past, we opened the oven door and turned the dial up to heat the house - but, now, my mother was concerned about the gas bill, so she was refusing us heat.  I can’t wear many layers to bundle up, since the weight of fabric drags on my muscles and exacerbates this neuromuscular condition of cramping that I have.  So, thinking myself clever, I secretly holed up in the lavatory, flipped the switch on the wall unit, and enjoyed the heat while surfing the internet.  I was probably trolling Craigslist for another place to live.

At one point, I heard the familiar sound of heavy shuffling coming towards the door - and then it opened.  She was never big on knocking.  It gave her a start to see another person in there, her shock subsequently turning to confusion and anger.  What was I doing in here with the heat on?  It was a huge drain of electricity.  It was going to raise her power bill astronomically.  Furthermore, it was weird (all in a Wagnerian shriek)...  Et cetera.  I said that I was trying to keep warm.  She responded that, if I were cold, I could put on a sweater. (I’ve explained my problem with that to her a few times over the past two years that I’ve been back, but her memory does not hold onto much at this stage of the dementia’s progression.  She tends to be defiantly uninterested in my issues when piqued, though.)  

After she delivered her advice, after the whirlwind that preceded it, I started to see red.  I have my own streak of pride that’s easily triggered by abusive authority, and it gets me into trouble.  As she turned to head down the hallway, I said, in a controlled voice, “I’ll decide what I wear.”  She had a problem with this.  She stopped cold, turned back to face me, and, face twisted with indignation, asked, “What did you say?”  This was quickly escalating to a crazy place - and, yet, blinded by my stupid attachment to autonomy, I answered her truthfully. I think the devil that was prodding me took the driver’s seat at this point, as I’m fuzzy on details going forward.  I generally remember things devolving nastily - my telling her to go away and leave me alone, shutting the door, and her busting it back open -  to my calling her - sharply and loudly - rude, arrogant, intrusive, insensitive - and telling her how much I resented her constant, inappropriate and insane attempts to control the ordinary behaviors of her son, an adult - and to not allow us heat.  She rebutted.  As I delivered one last soft-spoken and controlled final comment to her receding back, she said, barely under her breath, “Piece of shit.”  At this point, the devil took one last good shove of the lance into my skull for the money.  I tossed all shreds of control and shouted at her never to call me that.  

This is when she picked up the telephone book.  And my survival instinct kicked into martial-arts high gear, blinding any more reasonable flight response for the fight.  I ripped it out of her hand.  Then she made a fist and drew it back to punch me - eyes popping out of her head and huffing and puffing heavily; I quickly seized hold of her wrists to restrain them by her waist.  She tried to kick me hard, but I blocked her knee.  All the while I was bellowing at her: “Don’t - you - ever - try - to - hit - me.”  I think I’d had enough of that in my childhood. The energy started to leave her.  Frustration and confusion flitted across her face amorphously.  With labored breathing, she went to her room and called my sister.  

I could her on the phone: “I’m having a really hard time with Mike.  He’s getting violent with me, and I’m bleeding.”  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  Again, I elected not to be smart, and I went in there after her.  “You’re lying!” I said, hoping it would be loud enough for my sister to hear on the other end.  Seeing finally that I was in a losing battle, I left and went to my room.  My sister texted me (she always preferring the least direct method of confrontation, where she won’t have to face a response).  She asked what was going on, I told her, telling her she had to believe me, I being obviously the more credible source.  She said she believed us both.  Absurd.  

I decided to take things out of my sister’s unhelpful hands and go to my mother myself.  We talked.  She had now taken on a garment of sadness and martyrdom, expressing with sunken face and deflated tones her pained regret for my disliking her so much and for how she wished we could just get along - or something to that effect.  I responded, now holding back tears with everything I had:  We were two strong-willed adults with strong personalities, who both thought of and did things very differently; it was inevitable that we would disagree and not get along easily.  But we didn’t have to, I said; we always had the option to keep to our corners, and my sister had once rightfully suggested, mind our own business, respect each other from a distance, and keep the peace thusly - and that this would be quite alright,

I went out for a while.  I went to the grocery store, my favorite pass time since childhood.  When I returned home, my mother was placidly watching TV in the kitchen and, as in countless times past, greeted me as though nothing had happened.  

Some time later, I was rehashing the event with my sister.  She was insinuating my likelihood of physical violence - either in that fight or in general.  “Mikey [I hate that she infantalizes me like that] - I SAW the cuts on her wrist.  She’s a 76-year-old woman.”  That she was, one who could hold her own in a bout of fisticuffs.  I said that I honestly had no idea how those cuts got there and didn’t care; I did not instigate any fist fight with my mother or attack her ever.  Maybe I nicked her with my finger nail when I was trying to restrain her wrists as she was trying to punch me.  It wasn’t sinking in with her.  She didn’t want to hear or see it.  The easiest, least challenging scenario for her to accept was the one where I was a troubled young man and my mother, however flawed, was a declining old lady. To see the multi-faceted reality for her would possibly have been to upsetting and confusing.  I’m not sure.  But I’ve since then given up on any hope to convince her or any member of my family of the gritty and unpleasant reality.  It isn’t worth the effort.  I just do what I can to move forward, get a new home, restore my health, and leave it - and the snares of this family - behind.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Corespondance with a Familial Benefactor

I: Things are changing.  I need to use the funds you're sending me to pay rent, at least until my disability payments come in, possibly in a month.  I must leave this house, am leaving. She: Oh dear. Where are you going? We will revisit the issue.

I: Don't say "oh, dear."  This is just what  I need to do.  I'm not so comfortable with your saying we will revisit the issue.  It doesn't feel right to be at the mercy of someone else's purse strings and control at 36, having your self-assessment of needs and decision-making in question and autonomy unrecognized.  You can think it over.  I need help.  If you want to help me, I'd be happy and humbled to accept your aid.  If you don't, I'll have to figure it out some other way.  My mental health is at stake, and I intend to survive exercise my ability to save myself.

She: I will be helping you with CBD as I said I would. It would make life a hell of a lot easier if you didn't fly off the handle at every turn! It's  really annoying. It makes any dialogue impossible. I was planning to send you $150/month.  I will need to know what the CBD cost will be and based on what I ex[erienced, not as high as one would think. I'm not giving you a blank check and do have to manage my own affairs. I have not slept for 4 nights and let me know if/when you move.

I: No one's flying off any handle.  That was your interpretation.  I was calm and quite clear.  Don't be annoyed.  No one asked you for a blank check; I don't know where you got that.  I said I be using what you sent me - a check with a specific amount written in - for a specific a serious need - the opposite of a blank check. Do what you think is right.  Thank you for the money.  I hope you are planning more travels for the future. Take care.

She: Ok having a bad reaction to a drug at the moment to treat hot flashes.

It seems to happen a lot.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

Reply to an Old Friend after Some Years

Dear Anthony,  It's good to hear from you after all this time. No matter how much time has passed or how many miles separate, I will always feel warmth and affection for you and have a prayer in my heart for your well-being. And remembering birthdays is just what I do. Fortunately, I do not remember the event you describe, with your replying with such brevity… I only simply recall a general history of uneven communications. But let all that be water under the bridge. I simply am grateful for your reaching out at this moment. Thank you for all your inquiries into my own personal history of these last few years-and especially for your very last question, about what I have become. I like that question. It's so Afton appropriate, and you will hear why towards the end. But let me go back. I will tell you my story in chronological detail. I warn you-since you have asked, I must be completely honest in all regards, but you may become very uncomfortable with things that I share. There is no way around sounding pathetic and sad to certain ears in telling parts of my story. I hope you will understand that it is only in the interest of honesty. When I last saw you, I was on my way to Boston to begin my masters program and acupuncture and Oriental medicine. I did complete one year at that school before moving back to Los Angeles and transferring to a school here. Four years later, five years and offer the program. I completed my Masters and sat for state and national board exams, passing all with flying colors. It was a proud moment. But it was not without shadows that had been masking all the while. Over those years of school my health had gradually you going to decline, various issues that had been presenting themselves earlier progressing ever more rapidly. The demanding pace of my program, combined with treating patients in the school clinic and working while in school put such a strain on my body and mind that could not be overcome and exacerbated what was already very difficult. But I did not let anything stop me. I achieved my goals, and I set out to find a job, Believing that earning income would allow me to pay for the healing modalities that I needed to get back on track. In September 2014 I moved to Madison Wisconsin. I had thought that I had found a good job at a clinic there. So I pulled up stakes and headed out Midwest. I loved Wisconsin-the friendliness and honesty if the people, they're down to earth intelligence and sense of humorand no nonsense values, The natural beauty of this of the surrounding countryside, and the state capital college town that was educated and culturally interesting while remaining safe and friendly and peaceful and wholesome. However, things were not working out for me. I had missed judged the job offer a solid, and the clinic on her head no interest in providing me with steady employment. I had found a living situation that I thought was workable, caring for an elderly woman with advanced Alzheimer's in exchange for a room; However, the other caretakers and the woman's family proved quite a toxic and unfriendly Milyer, heaping further stress upon the situation. And my brilliant solution? To move again, this time to the Carolinas. I have done it again, imagining that a job offer was both for sure and to be lucrative. But the clinic on her here in Greenville, South Carolina, was not actually promising me the number of hours that I believed were on offer and so I went north after a month in Greenville, to Asheville, North Carolina. Asheville is the Portland, Oregon, of the eastern US-progressive and quirky, cultured and alternative; I figured I could definitely find work practicing acupuncture there. Also, my girlfriend was there… At this point, it would be appropriate to go backwards to interrupt storyline a within interpolation of storyline be, which is no less earthshaking; you're probably A little confused by my closing sentence of the previous paragraph, perhaps even hoping that it could not mean but it sounds like. You see, a number of years ago-really, going back to a year after I was diagnosed HIV positive,  I entered an and unsolicited, Long and grueling path of spiritual transformation.I began to feel an a instinctive pull back towards the Catholic faith of my upbringing, which I had never truly left behind, keeping it in my heart, though I was not practicing actively. As this pull started tugging on my soul harder and harder, on the first day of Advent of 2011, I returned to regular weekly Mass attendance, And I was ecstatic to be back in my mother's arms again. I was the prodigal son, and I was received with nothing but gladness and rejoicing, and my soul again began to eat the feast at my father's table.  I was receiving the spiritual sustenance I had craved. But now that I had had a taste, I only hundred for more. My interest heard from reading metaphysical texts towards Catholic theological once, and I consumed them in fixable. I launch to be a priest and to live my life outright and expressly for not only my faith but that of others, giving my life in service and ministering to the two other spiritual needs, being a conduit of their healing and spiritual progression and strengthening. But because of my health. Specifically my being HIV-positive. This location is off the table; the church is very clear about that. While I was disappointed, I did understand, as well then, while the Vatican has billions of dollars that is orderly corrupt, on the street level, the church hasLittle money or mismanages what it has, and cannot take on at the beginning the serious health care needs of the priest. So perhaps will be a deacon instead someday… But,while I was growing in faith and devotion, something else was happening under the covers, that I ignored for all the years that I saw it swelling, Until it was undeniable. Nine years ago,my interest in men romanticallyand sexually again to Wayne. And for all those years I denied it and played it off, telling myself that I was nearly depressed, and, ironically, losing faith. I told myself repeatedly to stay in the game, to keep the faith. So I tried dating over and over. I can never meet anyone that I can truly connect with and be emotionally fulfilled. In 2014, there was a shift. I began to attract a new class of men. They were emotionally stable, gainfully employed, charming, respectful, and, very importantly, had deep spiritual lives.when was even very active in his synagogue. He may have been a rabbi, though I can't remember.my point is that they were all wonderful partner material-and I could not of cared less. Each of them left me cold. Try though I forced myself, I cannot work up any erotic interest in them, and I had to face the fact that what interest I did have in them, which was significant, was platonic. The feelings that I was having for them where those of desiring their love and companionship-but I did not want to partner or have sex with them. It was clear to me. And then, to make everyone's head spin the rest of the 360°, was that I fell deeply infatuated with a woman.she was a friend of mine at school, and we had connected deeply. She was intelligent,charming, funny, with a strong warrior spirit, and she understood me-And I understood her. She was also a knockout beauty, and I had heart palpitations every time I saw her. Finally I was able to identify all these feelings that I was having for her-which I wasn't having for those men. I said to myself, that's it, this is what life's about, this is what I want. I want… To marry her. I nearly fell over. But here I was. My soul had transformed.  She was in a bad relationship and not available, so nothing came of it. But knowing her had finalized my transformation once and for all. I'm a heterosexual man.   I'm still celebrate color and art and dressing creatively and creative self-expression and I still somehow know what's going on in pop culture and I still have a sparkling sense of humor and sense of irony-but, I would feel so blessed to meet a wonderful woman now and Live a life of harmony with her. Again, though, given my HIV status, it may not be in the cards for me. That's alright; I accept it. I'd rather be in solitude and simply have the love of my family and friends than live an untruth. I may be meant to give my life completely to God and the healthcare of others.   That is, if I can get my own health together… This brings us back to the present. Things are not Rose. My body continues to fall apart. At this time, I am dealing with a very mysterious and troublesome neuromuscular condition of simultaneous weakness and extreme tension. Muscles just aren't firing properly, and, to compensate, they lock up and become extremely tight. There's no pain, and, while it's annoying, I could deal with it. It makes walking and carrying things and other chores tricky. But on the worst of all. It hassome G.I. complications that make life A struggle. If any, the muscles of your legs,hips, buttocks, and back are all required for having a bell movement, providing support for your viscera to fire and for peristalsis to happen. It is incredibly difficult for me to have a bell movement. My: fills up, and there's intense pressure, fullness, clapping, pain, and the release. I've learned to 10 certain muscles and relax others in order to have a movement, but it takes immense concentration. And sometimes hours to achieve. Sometimes The pressure starts building up and my nerves start racing and everything starts blazing and I start to feel crazy and weak and start sobbing and crying out and I can hardly contain it all.  Added to all this, I depend on my mentally and emotionally abusive mother for shelter. She has what I think is borderline personality disorder or combined with the early stages of Alzheimer's. there's manipulation, demands for attention, accusations, insults, insinuations, things forgotten from both the short term and the long term, and things fabricated. It's all the help.cry every day, which makes me feel feel pathetic for being a 36-year-old man, and I have to fight hard to stave off thoughts of self harm and wishing for death. My faith is the only thing that sustains me. This is the heaven that keeps me alive. Every day I go to heaven, which is Mass.I began daily mass attendance last May, and it only several more levels of ecstasy and busted down a new door opening to the progress of my spiritual development.  Every morning I reflect on the time this messages carried in the scripture for us in the present, and I celebrate the whole Eucharist. After Nas I pray the rosary and the chaplet of divine Mercy. And I have discovered the whole worldof deep socialization there at church like I never had before. I've made so many friends with him I can both share my faith answer my sorrows undersea fellowship and support and understanding and compassion of humor. Friendship is good-but friendship in faith is glorious and special and rare indeed. At this point, I'm waiting on a couple things. I'm turning a blind corner, and I can only wait faithfully to see exactly what God has in store for me. I have a number of applications to clinics in process. Though I'd rather not work. I can manage practicing Chinese medicine open… Sort of.   But also,I am waiting on the decision for my claim for long-term disability. I do not plan to be like this for the rest of my life; but as when I moved to Wisconsin two years ago, I just want the money. I have a whole wish list of healing modalities that gets ever more concrete and defined and  longer. I know that I can heal: at least enough to function properly and work and help people. I just pray for the resources to do it. There's a very good prayer that a priest gave me once that is one of my favorite prayers in life, "May God open the doors that I meant to walk through-and shut the ones that I am not." So here I am. That's where I am.  that's what I am. I hope this answers all your questions and satisfies all your interest. Whether or not you are interested in knowing me further, I simply hope that my story has inspired you in some way.  I have lost many friends over the years through my progress, So I will be not offended if you find that you wish to let things go at this point. But I simply hope that there will be peace between us. I cannot ask for more than this. I wish you health and peace and love in your life, Anthony. All my love back to you, Michael P. S. I realize I forgot to describe further the bit about mygoing to Asheville partly to be near my "girlfriend." When I had found that I was moving to Greenville, I went on OkCupid and started looking for girls  that I might meet in the greater Greenville area.Asheville is an hour north of Greenville. I found her in Asheville. She's a lovely girl, but we weren't quite compatible. We're still good friends. She actually has moved to Las Vegas and works at a children's museum there. That's the  very long story short…

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

It was midnight, and I was crying again, this time in the bathroom.  I was having another one of my difficult body trials, struggling with my muscles and bowels, and the cumulative frustration of years of daily pain and building pressure without release - the dam broke and I gave into sobs.  

Through the bathroom door, I heard heavy shuffling down the hallway.  My mother called out, “You waked me [sic].  Please stop crying.  It produces nothing.  Just stop.”  This is the woman who had called me “whore” (age 18), and “piece of shit” (age 36), among other things, and now had adopted this relative demeanor of calm and politeness.  It seems she believes she is improving her behavior and relationships - but there remains the familiar lack of compassion for someone who shares her space and causes her trouble.

My mother was an abused child.  She was slapped hard by her mother, slapped harder if she cried because of it to teach her to stop.  She was called “drama queen” if she expressed human emotion and told to turn off the water-works when tears came.  As a result, she could never develop the tools or dignity to know how to understand her own feelings, express them constructively, and transform them into higher consciousness and grow through pain.  Much less can she comprehend how to allow or encourage her children to do the same  At best, she ignores my pain if I’m visibly in it, choosing to take a river boat trip down De-Nile, directing her focus on the football game on TV or the crossword puzzle before her, or she prompts me to explain myself with the coldness of academic delineation, as though she were a high school English teacher, leading a student to develop an essay thesis (which she was and did).  At worst, she has stormed into the house during one of my crying fits, demanding to know what all the noise was, barking at me to stop it, since I was disturbing the neighbors and frightening the four-year-old girl next door.  I decided to go next door shortly thereafter, half to apologize, were the story true, and half to investigate.  It seems they’d heard nothing, had no idea what I was talking about.  Little Rylee was bubbly and bright and oblivious as usual.  My mother had lied to me to stop my crying.

Here we were at midnight, she asking me to stop crying because I had awakened her.  I was upset.  But I felt for my mother.  I cause her a lot of grief.  So, after slapping myself against the side of my skull (a frequent tic to relieve pressure in a way that is non-verbal), I stopped and went back to bed.

[snakemeetsunicorn-blog]

I begged my sister for help.  I explained to here that my mental health was on the brink.  I’d been having panic attacks twice or three times daily - sobbing, screaming, heart racing, body tensed and pulsing.  I felt like a kite with its string cut - or, alternately, a tray of wet slop into which someone had shoved an live wire.   For the past  two years, trying to manage my health and maintain some level of physical and cognitive function and cognitive had already become a battle, and my ability was dwindling.  But add to this having to live with my mother - the demands for recognition and attention, the accusations, the insinuations, the insults, the manipulations...  The strain had stretched me to the the very thinnest of holding it together.   I had texted my sister in tears.  My mother had said she was glad I was wearing the pants she’d given me for Christmas; but I was wearing the same pair I’d worn for months.  (Her ability to recognize and understand things had long ago begun to diminish, and I believe it is a form of dementia.)  When I told her this, she asked what I’d done with the gift pants.  I’d done nothing with them; I’d opened the packages, and they were here, not worn yet.  She then became sad, once again sucking all the energy in the room into her general direction.  She had so hoped that she could have given me something I could wear, and I wasn’t wearing what she’d given me.  From a distance, I think I could be very compassionate about my mother’s mental health issues; borderline personality disorder and dementia are only suffering for the person for whom life is always focused on what others are or are not giving or doing to them - and for whom the events  of life and words of others no longer have proper order or meaning - and who find the only power and coping in anger, negative pronouncements, and manipulating others’ feelings...  I am sad for my mother.  But, with constant exposure to her struggle to impress order and control on her immediate universe - which includes me - I fail at my other battle to keep it together and have faith, hope, love and patience in the moment.  This time, in her absurd focus on pants she’d given me that I wasn’t wearing, I did keep it together.  But I’d simply directed all the stress and anxiety inwards.  She left the house shortly thereafter to run errands.  And, in the vacuum in which she’d left me, it all expanded and started a slow demolition.  I quivered, rubbing my scalp, and the shaking grew stronger, and I was crying.  “I can’t take anymore.  I have to get out of here,” I said to myself.  (My survival instinct has never left me.)   So I texted my sister.  I begged her, pleaded with her to help me.  I just needed enough money to cover rent in a room somewhere for a month; hopefully, by then my disability insurance payments would start coming in.  And I made it quite clear: I was most definitely loosing it and was going to have a breakdown if I did not leave this house.  This was a risk, as it would be exposing your mental frailty to someone who, just a few months prior, had told you to your iPhone screen that you were mentally ill because of the religious and alternative political posts you shared on social media.  I was desperate.  So I implored her for concrete help to me get delivered out of this very bad situation. Her response: She said that she had too many expenses to take on rent for another person.  I understood the facts as she presented them - but, emotionally, I did not accept this.  I thought, “I’m your BROTHER.  HELP ME.  You drive two cars, buy new clothes with frequency, send your daughter  to an expensive school, you eat out at restaurants, and you and your husband are employed full-time by big corporations.  And you have one child.  Buy fewer clothes, eat out less, drive less, and HELP ME.  Am I not your family?  Or does the blood line and line of obligation become reorganized - along with your neurochemistry - when you have your own child?”  But I said none of this.  I simply said, without any irony, that I’d previously been searching for a mental hospital to which I could commit myself - but that I could not find one that accepted Medi-Cal.  Her response: She texted me links to county mental health services and said, “I love you.”   She also suggested I write a blog.