Can you Smell the Rage from there??

Is there even a way to fix things that have been broken for too long? For example: A chair breaks, if you fix it immediately, it may be okay, if it wasn't all that broken to begin with. But if you were to put it aside in the garage or something and wait five years, the chair would be so much more work to fix. Because now it's not just that a leg has been snapped, now the actual wood is corroding and you have to get a whole new peice. With a lot of repairs, it could be almost like new again, but never quite right. Aren't people like that too? If you don't fix the problems when they first start, it's that much more difficult to fix them at all. My family is a corroded chair thrown in the garage. Is it even worth fixing? Personally, I take chairs like that to the dump. Is there a dump for people????? I guess that would be like a jail or a state mental institution. And everyone in my family would probably fit the bill for either one of those places, sadly enough. My Mom and I would go to the loony bin, both my brothers would go to jail, and my sister would only be suited to a prison hospital, since she is a criminal and a psychotic.

I really wish I could put hidden cameras all throughout the house so professionals could see what I have to deal with. People think that if there is not overt physical abuse then there isn't anything that bad to deal with. But I've read articles about how psychological abuse can even cause post traumatic stress disorder. And that's if you take away the fact that whenever my brothers get angry, everyone in their path is in physical danger too. This morning alone, my youngest brother didn't like that my mom and I had our voices raised so he threw the laundry basket down the stairs at us. Then he came storming down, spit flying, voice hoarse with screams, flailing fists like a mini man hurricane of anger. He threw a punch a couple of centimeters from my face and then when I sat down in a chair he tried to wing the top of the cat tower at my head, but in his irate haste he misjudged and it hit my Mom in the head on the couch at the other side of the room. Then he started to scream about Mikey in response to me telling him that I hope the time that my Mom is gone works really well for him since I won't be buying him or anyone else any cigarettes, because I don't smoke. And I won't be driving him back and forth across town five times a day to get weed, and neither will Mikey. I wouldn't be doing his dishes, washing his clothes, making his meals, that I basically would no longer be his surrogate Mother. That's when he starts in on how neither of us do anything for anyone and he doesn't care, blah, blah, blah......and Mikey (who, what a surprise, didn't make it very far for very long, is back) thinks it would be a good idea to pop his head out of our dungeon space living quarters and ask if Sam has something to say to his face. And then later he acts as if he were actually defending me instead of himself. Because I didn't need nor ask for his help. I do just fine myself in arguments. See, I've learned that you almost always win if you stay logical and make sense and don't act like an idiot. Then you just have more weight behind you to back up the fact that you must be right, because you're not the one acting like a freak. It works for police and politicians ALL the time, so why not me? So when Mikey puts himself on my side w/out my asking and then proceeds to act like an ass, that pisses me off and makes things worse. So then him and and my little brother start fighting, Sam lunges at him and it gets physical. Then, my Mother always has to jump in the fray. So I'm yelling at them all to let go of each other, they're hurting my Mom, and they're rolling around on the kitchen floor, and my Mom's screaming, and I'm yelling at her now to just get away from them or she's going to get hurt. But in a fight no one wants to be the first person to let go because the other person might use that as an excuse to throw a sucker punch. But eventually they realized that they were hurting Helen (my Mom) and they separated. And then they act like nothing even happened and right away Mikey's all, "Hey Sam, I'll smoke you up". And I'm like "No, you won't, this is what the whole argument has been about". I get stuck in the middle because my siblings use all of their allotted money for the time Helen is away, and then they have nothing, no cigarettes, no weed, no money for food or gas, nothing. So then they start acting like horrible monsters, everyone has to walk on eggshells around them or another scene ensues where they are throwing things at you and screaming and calling you names. So I end up buying them that shit with my personal money or they money that Helen left me for taking the dog to the vet and buying groceries for everyone. She originally left me all their money too, to dole out as they needed it so it didn't get spent all at once, but that was a nightmare as you can probably imagine. Then EVERYTHING was my fault and I wasn't buying the right things and Lily didn't have enough of this or that. So I told my Mom I wasn't doing that anymore. So they have their own money allotted to them. But, like I said, they spend it all in about three days or less, and we're talking, like, a couple hundred dollars, not twenty bucks. So then she'll leave two hundred extra dollars in a "household" account that only I can access but then that makes me the middle man and puts me in a really horrible situation. I don't have a license but they're always bossing me around telling me they need this or that and they think I have all this secret money hidden away that I use to buy myself lavish things. And I'm so mean that I won't just give them what they want. They don't understand that that money is for emergencies or milk when we run out in four days, they don't understand the concept of planning and thinking ahead. So I end up doling out all that money in about two more days because now it's going to Lily, Sam, and Scooter because none of them have any of their own money left and so without fail, every week Mikey and I end up going through almost all of the money we live off on our own, which isn't very much honestly. I split Mike's unemployment with him every week which pays for my methadone, gas to get there, food for us and then, like, incidentals such as toothpaste, weed (which we hardly smoke very much of at all these days), shampoo and crap like that. I hate to admit it, but my dependence on that little bit of money is a huge reason why I am not more firm about Mike leaving. Because I have a bit of tax money I'm waiting for, but that will only go so far. I have to pay all my fines to get my license back and then Mike will take the car when he leaves, so it would leave me with very little money and no car. I maybe could buy a crapper with what's left after fines, or I could try to find a job within walking distance, but that's not proving very fruitful as of yet. So I feel really stuck and super pressured by parties on all sides. What's new? This has been my life for as long as I can remember. I know what I need to do in order to get where I want to be. I just never seem to be able to find an environment to reside in that stays stable enough, long enough for me to accomplish anything. Does that make sense? I feel like people are always making me feel as if everything really is within my control and I'm just always not making the right choices. But I feel like I try SO, SO hard to do the right thing, and work hard, and plan ahead and then something crazy, totally out of my hands happens. And I'm sort of left floundering and I have to sort of start all over again to figure out how this new situation works. And it just takes so long that way to get anywhere new, it seems so daunting that sometimes I just want to give up even trying. Not, like, kill myself. I can't stress enough how much I despise people who kill themselves. And I hate even more the people who simply act like they're going to kill themselves and then don't. Cry for help motherfuckers. Sorry to anyone who may be in that category and thinks I'm being insensitive; but I've had to live side by side with too many people who have pulled that crap. It's so hurtful to the people in your life, it's selfish and cowardly. I know there are certain instances when people have imbalances that are so severe that they really don't know what else to do, and I guess I feel a little sorry for those folks, but I feel more sorry for the people they left behind.

I think I must have been around eight years old the first time I remember being told that my Mom had tried to kill herself. She must have already had a history of being overly dramatic and self-absorbed, but I was a little kid and just saw her as my Mom still. I remember my aunt came to pick me and Scooter, my brother and the second oldest in the family, up from school. At the time we were going to The Atrium School, in Watertown, Massachusetts. It was this really liberal, artsy, private school where, looking back, all the teachers and administrators must have had their heads up their asses. I didn't get taught that you have to add numbers from the left to the right until I was almost ten years old. I just thought you were supposed to be able to look at them and know what they added up to. I just didn't understand how everyone could do it so quickly once the numbers we added got into the hundreds and thousands. Finally, one of them realized what I was trying to do and explained the correct, and much easier, way to do it. I remember being amazed. I had, at that point, acted out several Greek plays, made a Maypole and danced around it, disintegrated the shells of eggs with vinegar, made numerous cloth dolls, and gone on several treasure hunts. I could read anything, upside down and backwards. But I had no idea how to add. I guess they had certain priorities. But anyhow, back to the tale. We were picked up by my aunt, and I was surprised not to see my Mom. I always knew when my Mom was supposed to pick us up because usually on the days she didn't pick us up we had to carpool with my friend Jacob and his mom. And when we had to ride with him the car was always crowded and it smelled like baby poop and vomit, except when his little sister farted, which was often, and then we had the added benefit of two different poo smells. Yummy. I felt like I was going to puke the whole time. Every ride with them was a feat, a challenge of whether or not I could keep my stomach from ejecting it's contents. I dreaded those days. So I was highly concerned when I saw Meg rather than my Mother in the designated pick-up line. I was always an overly thoughtful, anxious person. Ever since I was born, my mother always said. My siblings were always fighting with each other and I would be sitting away from them saying, "It's not me Mom, right? You're not mad at me right?". And she would be trying to yell at them and turn to me finally and yell, "NO, NELLIE! I'm not yelling at you, am I? Just mind your own business". Or some such thing. Even to this day, she wants me to this or that, and I do it, and I try to please everyone, and she calls me a goody-two shoes. I just can't make her see me for who I am, which is sincerely a thoughtful person. I'm not doing what I do to get anything but respect and thoughtfulness in return. I don't want money, I don't want clothes or her car. I just want peace and consideration.

So Meg was there waiting for us, we climbed into her beat up old Volvo and asked where our mom was. She told us at that point only that Helen was in the hospital because she had been sick. Clearly we were worried as any children would be upon hearing such news. We rode in silence until we had made our way from Watertown over to Cambridge where my grandmother lived. But for some reason we didn't head to Grammy's house, and I really don't know what was going on as I've never asked for clarification from anyone who was old enough at the time to remember details, instead we stopped at O'Leary's which was a bar that my grandfather frequented. We were told to wait in the car while Meg ran in. She must have gone there to speak with either my grandfather, grandmother, or my Uncle Marty who may have been gathered there. So my mom's in the hospital after attempted suicide and we stop at the bar? Does anyone else think that's weird? Anyhow, from there I remember being brought back to our own house, over in East Cambridge. We lived close enough to the Charles River that we could see the Fourth of July fireworks from the roof of our townhouse, we could smell the chocolate from the factories that were next to the science museum. And I suppose we must have waited there with my aunt until my mom was released from the hospital.
I don't remember anyone trying to explain anything to us. I remember the hectic, anxious feelings in the air. I recall people rushing around and different family members coming and going. I don't know where my father was in all of this. I do know that was what we have always been told set it off that time. Helen and my father had separated, and she must have had some altercation with him. For a minute I almost confused this first time with another time. In the other incident, it was a weekend day and Helen decided to surprise my dad with fuckin donuts on a Sunday morning. And she finds him with some woman who worked for him. I guess, the story goes, she was sitting in the dining room with my father's shirt on and my mom walks in with home made donuts. I'm sure she made a scene. Probably donuts flew through the air. Sugar and cinnamon dripping down the front of the white collared shirt. But why, honestly, did she think he wanted his own place? So he could NOT fuck other women? At that point, after multiple infidelities, a woman has to make a choice. She either dumps the cheating bastard because she knows she can't live like that and he can't be faithful. Or she reconciles herself to what is the harsh reality and she finds some hot dude to fuck herself while continuing to live the life to which she has come accustomed. I would have respected her more had she made either one of those choices. But she picked an alternate course of action. Play the martyr and try to change an unchangeable situation; until everyone is so fucked up and angry that there is no foreseeable peace for anyone in the near future. Our life has been warped into this cluster-fuck of resentment, jealousy, anger, and depression.

And still, at almost sixty years old, my mother is not much different from that woman who was slumped in her bed in her East Cambridge townhouse with a wine bottle in her hand and make-up dripping down her face, blubbering to her three small children while they huddled in the doorway, unsure if there was anything they could do. We're still not sure what we can do when she decides she can't take anymore of the life she created. Not more than two nights ago she broke down because she spent too much money on Sam for his birthday, my brother Scooter went nuts with her credit card in NYC on a date with some girl he just met, my sister didn't act grateful when my mother told her that the Prius she drives everyday would be fixed by the next day; so that was it, nobody loves her, everybody hates her, guess she'll go make empty suicidal threats until we all want to pull our hair out. And the scene could have been any one from our childhood, only all of us are a little taller now. My Mom is freaking out on our siblings and I'm telling her to just calm down, she's overreacting and everyone is just tired. I tell her to leave the dishes and I'll do them very early so she won't even see them. And she turns and screams at me that she doesn't WANT me to do the dishes! Why don't I mind my own business, she knows how to run a home! So, same as twenty-five years ago, my siblings are spoiled to no end, act like assholes, my mom takes it out on me because they don't care when she's angry or upset and she needs someone to show a reaction so she fights with me instead when I'm just trying to be helpful and calm things down.

So, clearly, there is a lot more going on here than I could ever explain in crappy rant. But I'm sick and tired of having to deal with and clean up after this mess of monsters that Helen has created by never, ever setting ANY limits. She just throws money at anything that inconveniences her. If my sister is calling everyone big, fat fuckin cunts and calling the police on herself, my mom gives her money to go to a hotel for the night. Does anyone else agree that that is simply rewarding shitty behavior? I do. My sister thinks she's supposed to act like that, the worse she acts, the more she gets. Same with everyone. Except me, if I act out, even a little bit, or even if I'm not being unreasonable, if I'm just even questioning something my mother or someone is doing, I get attacked. She's thrown me out more times than I can remember before I even turned eighteen because I would try to tell her how to raise her kids. I'd tell her Lily was fucking twenty-five year olds and smoking cigarettes when she was fourteen, and my brother was doing acid at the dinner table, and she'd tell me to get the fuck out, I wasn't the parent and I was starting problems. She still resents me for pointing out the negative and wanting solutions. NO NELLIE! We look the other way, pretend it doesn't matter and let it eat away at our insides until we are so raw and bleeding that we need blood transfusions because the stress has caused ulcers that bleed through our ass, like you MOM.

Wow, I'm angry today. When I get treated the same as I did when I was sixteen, I get so angry, I want to burst. I don't even know what to do because I know that nothing I can say or do will matter. I just have to bide my time, try to get out alive, try to care more about myself, stop thinking that if I'm just nice enough, calm enough, if I do enough, if I clean enough than my mother will see that I'm good and and my siblings are not. That will never happen, she will never limit them, she will never reprimand them, she will never put her foot down, she will let them suck every single drop of energy from her and she wants me to do the same and I can't! I don't want for her to not love them, you can love someone who you think is wrong, you can tell them you don't love their actions while you still love them. She thinks that setting limits is the same as limiting her love for them. I think that if she loved us all more, she would have set limits when we we younger, she wouldn't have let us do whatever we wanted. Didn't she worry about us, worry is love, is caring. Letting your pre-adolescent children smoke cigarettes is not love, it nuts.

I have to go eat something before I faint. I can't not eat anything all day long like my mother and sister. Being a size zero is not worth my health and sanity, sorry. I won't starve myself because they think I'm fat! I'm so fucking tired of other people telling me I'm fat. Or talking about how fat they are in front of me when the are a size zero! Or telling me not to eat a brownie on my brother's birthday, it'll make it so I don't lose weight. Maybe I'm not all that concerned about my weight. I know I could stand to lose some, and I am, slowly. That's good enough for me. And lots of people still seem to find me attractive, so perhaps, Helen, it's possible to enjoy life and eat good foods and still people will love you even if you have a little roll on your tummy. I like having tits and an ass. I think they want to starve me so I look like a plank or a little boy, just like them. FUCK THEM! That's how I feel today, just fuck them all!