Mother Dearest….

I speak alot about my mother.  As much as I have been hurt by her in the past, I have nothing but adoration for her, love empathy, and a relentless desire for her happiness, sometimes costing me my own.  Tonight, I finally got my proof, that yes my mother suffers from borderline personality disorder, has suffered, but in her limited knowledge about such things refuses to admit it, get help for it, get some peace.  As you all must know by now I’m a dreamer… as a little girl I dreamed of making my mother’s life easier,she  was so tormented by fear, worry, stress, loneliness and I saw it, I felt every minute of it.  So, I dreamed, when I grow up I’m going to make enough money to make mommy happy, buy her a house in Italy next to her family. take her on vacations to see the world (my mother is claustrophobic and afraid of planes but bares it enough when she wants to go back to her home, where she was born, where she smiles….)  Well, I screwed up didn’t I?  I never did make enough money to buy her that house, instead I spent it on myself escaping in travel, never thinking of you mommy… I have had a couple of weeks of unyielding suffering, and tonight it brought me to a psychiatrist office again, looking for that bandaid to cover up the boo boo in my soul.  Mommy came with me.  She always does.  Every hospital visit, every doctors visit, every freakin time I cry there she is wiping my tears.  And so, I went into the office with her, I hide nothing from my mother now, for years I did, but there is no hiding anymore.  And as much as I love her, my mothe is a trigger, the drives to the dr’s offices are filled with worry, “Watch out”, “Drive slower”, “This guys going to hit you”, etc… anxiety… fear explodes out of her in a simple car ride.  As much as I love her I feel she is my trap, my cage.  Animals taken out of the wild, put in a cage in the zoo, experience something called “zoochosis.”  “Thousands of zoo animals held in artificial environments with little stimulation, enrichment or opportunity to hide from the public gaze, display unnatural behaviour patterns. Even in the ‘better’ zoos, abnormal behaviour can be widespread, and include repeated pacing, rocking, vomiting and even self mutilation.”  I have read about animals banging their heads against the cages in despair, even chewing their limbs, they are “trapped.”  That is how I feel.  And this is what I told the psychiatrist, and this is what Ihave told my mother repeatedly… I feel like a bird in a cage that needs to be set free.  She knows I want to move, she tells me to do so, that if I am happy she will be happy, but I know the truth, I know what it’s like to leave someone with BPD… and so tonight she fianlly showed me how she really feels.   She began crying when we left.  “What have I done to all of you that makes you want to leave me?”  “Why doesn’t anyone want to see me anymore?”  You see, my sister, left many years ago, denying anything wrong with my mom, she lives in Italy, and my brother well he lives close, but he has eft emotionally.  GUILT froze me.  How could I ever leave her?  How could I leave my mother and be where I want to be?  I think as much as she wants peace for me and she does.. she prays to Padre Pio every night for me, she wants me close, what will she do without all the drama?  What will she do without the doctors visits?  What will she do without the chaos that is my life?  Yes, she is grown and has lived her life, no, she has survived her life, but I wish for her to live, before I can, I wish for her to turn off the TV and visit friends.  I wish for her to stop sleeping on the couch and stop chewing on her  limbs…  So, I am torn.  I am torn between leaving, and when I say leaving I am thinking of moving far away, or staying here, which keeps me caged up… Mother Dearest, I love you, you are not the reason I want to unlock the cage, but I want, NEED to be free, free from worrying about you, free from having you worry about me, free from the pain  that binds us.   You are a beautiful soul and I want peace for you, even more than for myself, but I am not God and I cannot save you, as you have not been able to save me..   Call it codependence, call it enmeshemnt, label it as you like, but for my mother dearest and I the pain is a bond we share that keeps us stagnant, but I know one of us must find the key and unlock the cage…

Paradise…

As I have been on vacation for the last two weeks, I have not written, yet today I feel the need to rid myself of the turmoil inside since I have gotten back.  I am desperate.  I am suffocating.  I am  being strangled by an invisible force that won’t let go.   Why now?   I travel constantly and each time, I find happiness, peace, serenity, FRIENDS.  From the moment I am up in the air to the second I say goodbye to my newfound friends, I am euphoric.  My days away by the ocean, or in a new city, where no one knows me, where at first I am all alone, are spent without the DEMONS that haunt me every waking moment in my home.  I can walk the beach alone, I can eat in a restraunt alone and feel completely FREE.  My enviornment is slowly KILLING me.  On this last vacation I quickly made friends with people who didn’t care about my money, or my fancy car or fancy clothes, or the materialistic things that bind me here.  I talked with strangers and felt like I knew them a lifetime, I danced with strangers and felt connections that escape me here.  I lay by the ocean, my body and soul free from the BLACK SPIDER that chases me here every waking moment…  The second I boarded the plane back to New York, the pain was so great, I wanted to flee back to the safety of the friends I had made, back to enjoying LIFE.  Today, the pain has worsened because I am aware that LIFE can be BEAUTIFUL and that there are people who think like me, to enjoy every second…which in New York seems impossible.   Today, I am a caged animal labeled as BORDERLINE.  On vacation I was me, fun, outgoing, kind, cheerful, tranquil.  The stressors in my life here are overwhelming, to say the least.  I am a walking robot, as the millions of walking robots I see in my city.  In telling my adventures on vacation, others comments were INVALIDATING to say the least, “YOU’RE CRAZY…”   Am I?  Am I the one who is crazy because I don’t fit your description of normal society standards?  Am I the one who is crazy because I know there is more to life than living to work?  Am I the one who is “CRAZY” because I don’t act like you?  Am I the one who is crazy because I love people, human connection, instead of sitting here throwing my thoughts out into cyberspace?  Is it me?    No judgement calls here, however your judgements are destroying me (and by “your,” I am refering to society).  Frankly, I am exhausted of the label, I am exhausted of the judgement calls, I am exhausted of society’s rules and norms…I am human, looking for REAL LIFE, LOVE, PEACE…so then I ask who exactly is the “crazy” one?   I have no regrets of my behavior during my time away from this “WORLD.”  Judge me if you wish, but I am merely a girl looking for a paradise…