#6: My mother
Unlike my Old Man, Mom isn’t a bad person…just a person bad things have happened to.
My mother…as she was the primary parental figure in my life, you will be hearing a lot about her in my blog. Despite a long and complicated relationship, she is the only member of my family that I’m close to today, and technically my only family. She was my primary source for sexual information, although that was in a very detached manner. You’ll understand when I get to that part in my life.
Mom is bipolar, a condition that can indeed run in families. She has it just as my grandmother on her side had it. The long and short of this is that bipolar peoople can live fulfilling lives so long as they take their medicine, typically lithium. But if their meds go off, then it’s all downhill until a doctor can get their lithium count in check.
My mother had to put up with this problem with my grandmother throughout her childhood, and this repeated again a generation later with myself. Whenever my mother was manic, this led to many embarrassing and hard moments in my childhood.
I remember when I was seven or so when it was happening and Mom started not showing up to work, overspending and overcharging her credit cards, and well…acting manic. She showed up in this condition at my school one day and as all the kids walked down the hall, she danced and pranced around like a drunken moron. The principal had to ask her to leave. The other kids were asking me things like “What’s wrong with your mom?” as I looked down embarrassed and couldn’t answer. I was intelligent beyond my years about adult issues, but you can imagine how many heads of other seven year olds that would fly over.
This condition of hers has happened several times in my life….when I was seven as mentioned, when I was thirteen and then just last year. With the exception of last year where I was now an adult and could responsibly deal with the situation myself without affecting my living situation, the other times were a shock to my current environment and dramatically altered things. I will describe these events in the blog as they come.
I don’t know if I will get her condition, but I think if I was, it would have happened long by now. For the most part, I seem to be a clear thinking individual fully capable at performing at his job, so I think I got lucky. If I HAD to inherit one of my parent’s genetic faults, it certainly would be my mothers as meds can deal with it. But ideally, I would rather not have to bother with either, of course.
Now in my mother’s defense, I think she would have been more careful with her meds if it weren’t for her home environment. After all, any woman would have trouble concentrating on such things if she was getting battered on a regular basis.
The Beautiful Kind Says:
April 4th, 2008 at 8:47 am
That is so sad that your mom got abused!
My mom is bi-polar and a few other things as well. The other day I was hanging out with her and she saw Joan Baez in one of the dirty dishes in the sink. That is SO much cooler than seeing Jesus!
She also pet a collie that wasn’t there and swept the floor with a “lamp.”