My mother and I aren't speaking at the moment. She's currently blocked everywhere but Messenger, and she's blowing that up trying to guilt me into a relationship with her.

#MothersDay is therefore a bit fraught for me. / https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1220518130272763904

If the problem were just her racism, then all I'd have to do is keep her out of my loved ones' lives. I could have a conversation with her directly, try to work with her.

But on top of that, the problem I'm having right now is that she refuses to accept anything I say as real. /

This is a long-running problem. I poured my heart out to her when I started struggling in school and was at risk of failing in two course, she gave me all the good advice and told me to do what I could, I triaged the one course and got an A in the other,

And she was furious./

She couldn't remember the conversation we had, claimed she'd never say it was okay to do what I did, cut off any support she was giving for school.

So I dropped out and started working at a pizza place to pay my own way. The job that started killing me. /

It was at that point that I started realizing this was a pattern. I was an adult, out from under her power, and seeing her infrequently. I started taking notes of things we talked about, by phone or in person, often with the exact words she said.

I realized it was constant./

And that it served an agenda.

It's how her brain defends itself. /

When I remind her of something that reflects negatively on who she is and what she beleives, she rejects it out of hand. It can't have happened that way.

When, last year, I talked about the Southern Strategy on Facebook, she went into overdrive to deny it happened. /

She went to the wikipedia article, grabbed random names of historians out of the "Debate" section w/o reading their arguments, to try to prove it wasn't true.

The debate, incidentally, is how effective the strategy was, not whether it happened. They SAID they were doing it. /

I tried to have conversations with her to poke back against this newly discovered racial animus on her part - I mentioned the problems my black friends had had with the police,

And she said that, because fifty years ago she had been beaten up by a black boy, it wasn't so bad. /

So when she, pounding her fist on the steering wheel in the parking lot of the Green Valley Ranch Beer Garden, shouted to end a conversation that "The problem isn't the police, the problem is the blacks, the problem is that the blacks are violent!"

I wrote it down. /

And when she can accept that she said that, that she isn't the ultimate authority on our relationship, and that it's POSSIBLE that her memory might be playing tricks on her,

She can speak with me again.

Until then, I'm just ANOTHER person she's driven away. /

This wound up being longer than I expected - I guess I'm kind of processing with y'all, because what I WANT to do is to process with her, but she's not available for that.

When she is, I'm willing to work on it.

But that's her choice. /

CW: Rape, Child Abuse

She is herself the victim of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her Baptist Missionary father. Her mother looked the other way and ignored that the abuse was happening. Denied it even after his death.

She still made an effort to be in her mom's life./

I think that might be because she believes the morals that kept her abused - that blood family matters more than anything, that you're entitled to be a part of your family's life.

I do not share that belief.

So to her, I've betrayed her by setting a boundary. /

I also remember that she did everything she could to keep her parents out of my life. I remember my grandmother apparently leaning over my crib as a baby, and cooing "Who's my little good-for-nothing?"

I remember thanking her, as a teen. Recognizing it must have been hard. /

I love my partner. I love my kids, who don't exist yet. I love my friends.

I'm going to do what I need to do to keep them safe.

And I love myself.

So I'm going to do what I need to do to keep me safe.

And I'm going to try to forgive myself for what that entails. /

I don't hate my mother.

There is so much good I got from her, but in particular my love of stories.

This popped up on my memories recently, and it's still true. /

My well-being, though, and the safety and well-being of people I love, depend on closing a door on her.

If she's willing, she has a way back in to my life.

We'll see if she loves me more than she loves her dogma.

To anyone else who's got complicated feelings today? /

You're worth being taken care of. You deserve to be treated with love and respect.

You are under no obligation to be abused.

Ever.

Have a good day, all.