Horror of Horrors!

I am not sure how this happened, how such an oversight could have taken place. I've checked all my journals, and not one of them has this story documented, so now I need to go ahead and type it out for posterity because, it's truly ABUNDANT in the craycray. 

Also worth noting, this is the incident which preceded the last game of "Telephone Twattery" which put her in a telephone time out for several weeks, a few weeks later. 

Picture this, March 2013. Audrey's birthday. We were all convened at her house for a party. Pretty good turn out. First indication things might not end well: Not one person stepped on or tripped over her big bloated legs and feet. I found it an odd detail, but really, just like one expects the sun to rise in the a.m., so, too, must someone, ANYONE, trip over her feet, necessitating/facilitating her theatrically shrieking in abject surprise, horror and pain.

The only attention whore to be found, surprisingly, was Audrey's life long friend Betsy, who, on or about the time I had my gastric bypass, had a lap band surgery and lost a considerable amount of weight (but still is huge). Betsy set about asking all kinds of personal questions: How much did you lose? What's your dress size now? How much did you weigh before? All of which, none of her effing business. 

I suppose when she didn't get the attention she craved (I guess she expected me to comment upon her diminished heft/girth), with that, she hoisted up her blouse, and standing perhaps a scant 12 inches from the birthday cake, FLOPPED OUT HER SAGGY PANNUS to, I suppose, show off (why ELSE would someone do this?). Mind you, I've got a REKNOWN bitchy resting face, and tend to pride myself on my "flat affect" how most folks cannot tell what's on my mind most of the time. Yet, saggy deflated pannus that is birthday cake adjacent? Oh yes. Eyebrow raised, with a grimace of disgust on my face, and the words, "... and that's why we wear clothing, to hide that shit" just tumbled out of my mouth.

(Honest to God, I swear I had to have typed this out somewhere! I just cannot find it! This is so unnerving!)

Mind you, in 1998 when I was on the balls of my ass and in the throes of my divorce, at a time when I lived local to Betsey and she had a finished basement in her house, and she lived alone, she did not make herself available to me in my hour of need, so color me, at a minimum, UNINTERESTED in her and her weight loss journey. 

Anyway, party over and done, no one stepped on her feet, I thought "YAY finally, a normalish gathering!" This was short lived.

1 a.m. the following a.m., Audrey needed to use the loo, so the recline and lift chair finally gets her from a seated to a standing position, only problem was the little scatter rug Audrey put in front of the chair to camouflage the abundant carpet stains, evidence that often times by the time she gets into that standing position, she pretty much just voids herself where she stands, not enough time to get to the loo.

As you might imagine, Audrey catches her foot on the scatter rug, and takes a tumble, and mercifully does not sustain any injury. However, like a turtle on its back, she cannot get enough "purchase" (as she likes to say) to get herself up off the ground. And like a fool, as many times as we have told her to make sure her cell phone and house phone are charged up and arm's length away from the chair, she is essentially stranded on the floor of her house without the means to summon help.

Then the LIGHTBULB went on, and she realized while the phones were no where's near, her laptop was, so she got on FACEBORK of all things, and from 1 a.m. until roughly 4 a.m., there she was, typing out the Facebork equivalent of "Help help, I've fallen and I can't get up" in status updates, even including, "If you see this, please call my daughter at XXXXXXXXX" putting my sister's phone number out there into the universe for all to see.

So at about 4 a.m., my brother, who was working an 11 to 7 shift, happened to be taking his meal break, and got on Facebork to catch up, so he called my sister, who sent her husband to get Audrey off the floor. Normally, he's able to do so. (Note: Audrey at last count was 400#.) He was unable. Two EMTs showed up, and the three of them were unable to get her off the floor. A local patrolman showed up, and in sum it took FOUR GROWN MEN to get her off the floor (Mind you, she probably voided herself several more times in the four hours she was stuck on the floor. THAT ALONE would have been enough to stoke my ire or stoke my pride to find a way, any way to get my own ass off the floor... not Audrey! Nope! Any attention is better than none!). 

And this is the story of how or why Audrey finally has one of those Life Alert pendants. And I flat out refused to pay for it. If she's got $150 to buy an American Girl (TM) doll bed for her grand daughter and somehow can't find the cash for the $30 or $40 monthly fee (or whatever it is, really) for the Life Alert, NO. I will not subsidize stupidity.

Tripping My Trigger

I saw this image this morning on FB (somewhere, don't recall where), and it triggered the memory that my grandfather (mom's abusive prick of a father), in true stereotypical Italian-old-man-fashion, he used to raise pigeons (specifically, carrier pigeons). 

Many years ago, he used to compete. One of my first memories of my grandfather, we're in his basement of the old family house (not the house described later in this post), and I'm maybe 5 years old? And there I was, holding a pigeon chick... which promptly shit all over my hand. 

I think back to the stench of dog shit and dog piss for the German shepard they kept down there, tethered and in the dark, antisocial motherfucker, who one day bit me, and forever has left me with a fear and reluctance towards German Shepards. 

I think back to about a year after my grandmother died (perhaps longer?), in preparing my grandfather's house for sale, the entire family was expected to go there and help pack. I, of course, had my boundary in full effect. I stopped doing anything for the old man, after the last good deed I did for him, rather than thank me, he insulted me to my face. So, no, I was not one of the lackeys there, digging through his filthy stuff. 

I think back to my dad telling me of how everyone had bundled up outright trash to go to the curb, broken shit and such, and how when they'd return the next day, all that broken shit had found its way back into the garage. 

But wait. There's more. Approximately ten years, perhaps fifteen even, prior to the sale of his house, he stopped raising pigeons. He had an elaborate system of coops in the garage. And it was expected that ALL HANDS ON DECK were to go in there, and clean out the coops. Yes. For 10-15 years, those coops sat as they remained, full of feathers and petrified pigeon shit, and bugs and old seed, and no doubt mold and who knows what other types of inhalation hazards. Fuck all of you people, clean that shit! 

I think of how unacceptable all this was (mind you, the old fuck's birthday was three days ago), and how every last person that helped that old, miserable, thankless fuck, had endangered themselves with who-knows-what they were inhaling, but also in doing so, enabling more of this self-centered, overly-demanding, narcissistic bullshit, which would continue on for another 22 years until his ultimate passing.

I think back to the last winter my mother worked. Her car up and died. No cell phone handy. Somehow a cop happened by, and drove her to her father's house, where she asked him if she could borrow his car. "No." 

I think back to how cold that night was. I remember my dad driving to the old man's house, and then struggling to get Audrey into his truck. A comedy of errors no doubt, but in freezing temps, it took my dad all winter long to shake that bout of bronchitis as a result. 

I think back to when my dad was in the hospital dying, and Audrey's roof sprung a leak, and she merely asked the old fuck for a loan. To which, his response was, "Go to the bank like everyone else." 

I think back to the crocodile tears that piece of shit old man cried when my father died. It was utter bliss to know he would not show up at the funeral. Because like Audrey, he was too hobbled and handicapped (though, in his defense, it was rheumatoid arthritis, not mobility issues due a combination of obesity and related co-morbidities like Audrey--who, was unable to attend her father's funeral four short years later). 

I think back to the old man's funeral. There I was, playing the part fate had cast for me. And there we all were, being there, some on our own accord, some because Audrey couldn't be there herself. Yet another example of others do do doing for Audrey, thankless tasks that are quickly forgotten. 

I think of Audrey. I think of all those years of abuse. Every last hateful word. Every last heart string manipulated. 
I think of the expectation/demand that my sister manually disimpact her. 
I think of those filthy fucking syringes in her box of books. 
I think of all that, and then some, and cannot help but think of how outrageous all this is, all this has been, and knowing my sister has employed some boundaries, and knowing and hoping that the never-ending cycle of expect, demand, abuse, might be coming to a close when Audrey ultimately passes, whenever that happens to be.

I think of what a huge waste of time all of this, this family life, such as it is, such as it was, has been. 

Lifted From FB This a.m.

Also, if you're so inclined, I did a full on extrapolation on my PCOS blog, as I tend to inventory discussions with my therapist therein.

Distinctions, Distinctions: Sociopath or Asshole?

35 or 36 Years ago Audrey informed all three of us kids (after being KIDS and being loud or playing at our aunt's house) of which form of contraception failed:

"You! (Me) YOU were a condom that never was." (*Allegedly my dad had the mumps as a kid and thought he was sterile.)
"You! (Little brother) YOU were a diaphragm that didn't work!"
"You! (Sister, middle child) YOU were the only one I wanted and look at what I got!" (Totally dripping with disgust and disdain).

This was par for the course during a childhood of a never ending stream of invective like this, peppered amongst the regular standby's, one-size-fits-all invective like, "I hate you," and the golden chestnut, "I wish you were never born."  This was a childhood where we all took to hiding to ride out the worst of the abuse. To this day, the smell of fresh, clean linen is the most soothing of scents to me, as the linen closet and under beds were my ideal hiding spots.

Pan forward to 2008, when both parents had taken ill. One in the hospital dying, the other (Audrey) in the nursing home, in the process of having her bowels manually disimpacted by my sister. Audrey decided while my sister was doing an archeological dig on her ass, that THAT was the right time and place to inform my sister of how she's got a different relationship with each of her children:

"Oh yes. Maven is my friend. And (name redacted) is my baby. And I love you because you're my daughter."*

This is a stunning example of lack of boundaries, of Audrey expecting my sister to manually disimpact her, despite the obviousness that she was in a nursing facility and there were staffers there for MEDICAL CARE such as that; as well as my sister's participation in the lack of boundaries by OBLIGING Audrey in this most unpleasant of tasks.

Another gem from summer of 2008 was when Audrey was in the hospital, by dad's bedside, roughly two weeks after his surgery, him attached to the ventilator and mute, she exerted her power by introducing me to dad's day nurse:

"This is Maven, my husband's daughter."

The pendulum continues to swing radically, still to this day, as is evidenced by the wild vascilation to the left, which took place on Saturday of Easter weekend with Audrey in full on manip-u-mode, hysterically crying "I am sorry, I'm sorry. I thought you were made at me!!" to present day snarling at my sister, "Don't ask me if I've heard from Maven. It's like you're stabbing me in the heart!"   Clearly, she's unhinged,in denial that any of us (siblings, and now the extended family) talk, and she's in full on Kermit Flail to anyone she thinks she might get a rise out of, or a modicum of sympathy at the very least.  

And when I say that the pendulum continues to swing radically, I do not mean it goes from "good witch" to "bad witch," I essentially mean going from shitty, to something even more inconceivably shitty... as well as the obvious, her going from "Victim to bitch in 10 seconds flat."

*Now about that "friend" shit. For starters--ERRONEOUS! It's being nice, like feeding the wildlife, which my friend Anne R. Key has been quoted in one of her most recent blog posts as saying. Nice. But being nice like a survival mechanism, but not entirely unlike the foolhardy Timothy Treadwell being nice with those cuddly grizzlies, that ultimately took his life, just as viciously as Audrey will take mine, if given the opportunity.

Art Imitating Life, and the Reverse.

I saw this caption under a photo over at Humans of New York about a week ago:

“My parents were always fighting. They weren’t very supportive. I used to be bitter about it. I was caught up on how my life could have been different if I had better parents. How things would have been different if x, y, and z had happened. But then you get older and you realize maybe they didn’t have the capacity to give you what you needed. They couldn’t understand you, just like you couldn’t understand them. You realize they were dealing with their own disappointments. And you even start to think, ‘Maybe I could have been a better son.’”

I thought to myself the how it parallels my life narrative, to a degree. Right up until I got to the last sentence. 

I mean, hey, if my folks were working out their own shit, dealing with their own disappointments and baggage, they were STILL the adults in this dynamic. And if they were doing the best they could with the hand they were dealt, why cannot the inverse be also valid, that I was trying to do the best that I could do with what I was dealt. 

Thought provoking for sure. 

For years, as a coping mechanism, I tried to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear, and looked the other way, and still tried to make Audrey happy. When that finally stopped working, my next coping mechanism was to convince myself that Audrey is handicapped, emotionally handicapped and unable to be who we need her to be, as well as be who SHE NEEDS TO BE FOR HERSELF.  When that finally stopped working as a coping mechanism, I finally see her as she truly is, a destructive narcissistic sociopath, devoid of a conscience, devoid of self-awareness. I see a husk of a human being, frittering away what precious time she's got left, wrapped up in her constant feeding frenzy to be the center of the known universe, and like the Emperor in the Emperor's New Clothes, she's in total denial that her nakedness is clearly evident for all to see.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

It's All Relative

Pain is relative.
My relatives are pains.
Coincidence? I think not.

Pretty Much Sums It Up!