Her Mania Disguised as a Brain Tumor

One minute, we were talking on the phone. Me, in my college dorm room, her telling me she needed me, that she was going to die. She said the doctors diagnosed her with a brain tumor, and she needed me to get there. I did, through manipulation. She told me I was so pretty and if I wasn't her daughter, we could really have "something special." That creeped me out. I had no clue of the things that were to come, things that would haunt me for the rest of my life. She was beautiful to me, wild, somehow convincing the docs to let her out of the hospital. The admiration for her soon burned out, like one of those scented candles. It faded, to my already blind eyes. My mom never wanted me, and I accept that.

Next thing I knew, we were in her truck, getting lost on the way to see her boyfriend. I watched her expertly dump her last one before she got vicodin from a dentist and we were on the road to David. She told me she dumped Chris because he suggested she and I separate, that I become more independent, which threw her into what i know now as one of her fake seizures. She stopped on the side of the road, went into some strangers truck for about twenty minutes. I was a little tired from the two pills she gave me. I didn't ask what they were. That was the policy. "Do what I say, or I'll leave you. I'll drop you and walk away smiling." That was the policy with her. It was unspoken, but it was said plenty through her actions. When she was angry with me, the silent treatment was her weapon, and that meant I had done something she disapproved of. It was always made better, on her time frame of course, because she loved the checks, the lovely s s i checks.

After she got back from the truck with the strange guy, we ran out of gas or something, ended up walking on the side of the rode, in this really tall grass. I held onto her arm. Being blind and all, and with no cane, I had to do that. I tripped once or twice, didn't fall though. She kept walking and chastized me for tripping, saying I was slowing us down. We got a ride from a couple, and she had a seizure in the back of their car. We then went into a convenience store, where she passed out. She passed out right after she bragged to the store clerk that she had seizures and was going against her doctor's instruction not to be driving. What did I do? I burst into tears as she fell to the ground. The clerk took pity on me and called the cops, parametics, the whole works. She was miraculously fine when they showed up. Shouldn't that have showed me her "seizures' were all an act? No. It didn't. I was stupid I guess. I was an adult, about 19. Didn't i have the right to make my own decisions? Judge me if you wish, but you had no idea what it was like.

David paid for us to be taken to a hotel. Mom loved calling my grandma, telling her where we were, telling her to send the cops to pick me up. Was I a joke? Was I a pawn in a game? Yes. Now, looking back, I can definitely say yes. I didn't know this at the time. I knew I had to depend on her for food, clothes, every fucking thing imaginable. The admiration I had for her wild side was starting to flicker, was starting to burn down, in that motel room.

When David arrived, they were all over each other, making out, everything close to sex, moaning, with me right there on that shitty motel bed. She suggested I go take a bath. I went in the bathroom, and got in the tub. I picked up the disposable razor from the side of the tub. She came in as I had it against my wrist. She came in crying as I put the razor back. She said she just couldn't "do it" with David, that she loved me in a way I couldn't know. That didn't stop them from doing it when they thought I was sleeping though. She stole the blanket from that motel, and had another "seizure" in David's truck, all the way to Arkansas, to his house. On the way there, I leaned my head against the door, pretended to be sleeping as he fingered her. They had to brag to me about it when I supposedly woke up. They did things in front of me at David's house without abandon.

He had a Corvette, and he drove us around in the woods, and on back roads. I was squeezed in behind their seats, listening to their sexual flirty jokes toward each other, him driving at an unbelievable speed. I knew then i was going to die. God must have been watching out for one or all of us that night, because we all made it out of that one alive. I was lying down behind the seats as she screamed that he was gonna kill us all. I'll never forget the complete euphoria in her voice, the raw excitement.

The next day, as I was arranging to go back to Texas and maybe rebuild some bridges I burned with the college, she tried to get away from David. I was relieved to be getting away from her total sexual unpredictability, her total unpredictability in everything. The candle, the candle I mentioned earlier, was completely burned down to nothing. It may as well have been one of those trick candles, that relight when you blow them out. Not that the candle ever came back. Let's just say the scent of it was totally gone, dicipated, and I questioned whether it was ever really there at all, or something I dreamed up. She told my family if they wanted me they could have me. She told me she was tired of fighting for me, tired of having to "take care," of me. Well fucking teach me how to do stuff you fucking cunt!!!!!!! David wouldn't let her go. I don't know if he was a jealous psycho or what, didn't care. They were each other's problem. I just needed to get to the airport.

He told her she owed him a bunch of money for all he had spent on her. She went out and broke the truck mirror and cut her arm, and was gonna write her debt to him in her blood, very dramatic. He dragged her inside, threw her on the couch where I was sitting, and told me to call the cops. Her feet rested in my lap. This was after I went into the bedroom with her to try to end things on a good note with her, and she shoved me out of the way as if I was just a box of useless clutter in her way. I felt that useless. She scratched me too in that shove. That hurt, but when I called the cops and then went outside, running into the woods, brambles pulling at my clothes and arms, running from her screams of my name, that hurt way way more. The way she screamed my name, calling me jessi, over and over again. She had an oscar worthy seizure when the parametics arrived. I'll never forget that. She shook and screamed and screamed. It still haunts my nightmares.

Call me selfish, cold-hearted, but I wish if she was suicidal, had those feelings and thoughts, well, I wish she would have just got it over with instead of staying alive and making the rest of us suffer with all her game playing shit. David found me in the woods and took me to the hospital to see her. Was she hurt? Did I even want to go to the fucking hospital? I'll give you one guess. No. She was sitting on the bed, drinking a coke, even offered me a sip. David told me to give her a hug. I refused, for fear of being shoved again. Another reason I didn't hug her is because, call me stupid, paranoid, whatever, I thought whatever was making her do all this shit would rub off on me just by her touching me. I wanted to be as far away from her as humanly possible. I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until she stopped breatheing.

I've never wanted anyone to hurt like I've been hurt in my life, but right then, I wanted her to fucking suffer. I wanted her to realize the fucking world doesn't and never will revolve around her. I hate her. I hate her for blaming everything on her fucking bipolar disorder, yes not a brain tumor, for not wanting to admit to being bipolar, for wanting to have her fucking cake and eat it too. People want me to forgive her and move on. Truthfully though, I don't think i can anytime soon. We didn't talk for a year after I got on that plane, if that tells you anything. There are even worse things that have happened, and maybe you'll hear about those someday. Short stories are supposed to be that, short stories. Right? Short and to the point? What was my point here? That my mom's a psycho? That's clear. I know I have to forgive her. God says I do. Please help me forgive her God, give me the strength, because I don't know how. It gets easier though, the memories that come unwanted in my mind, like bugs that bite your flesh to get at your blood. It gets easier because I don't have to be alone anymore, because I know how to do things for myself. I have God in my life, and I have my wonderful wife, who makes the insane times a little more sane, and the times that seem completely unbearable, a lot more condensed and easier to deal with. Thank you, my beautiful queen wife. Thank you, for just being you. I love you now, forever, and all the times in between. You're my everything, and I probably would have ended up like mom if not for your love and strength. You mean everything to me, way more than you'll ever know. You carry my heart with you baby, wherever you go, whatever you do. Keep it safe please. It's been broken too many times, and every time you touch me, kiss me, hold me, you mend it just a little more.