Texting with My Mom about Presents and Dissociation, Drugs, and Deviance

A little Xmas story and my plan for surviving Trump

Photo by erin mckenna on Unsplash

Texting with My Mom about Presents

(Skip ahead if you want to get right to Dissociation, Drugs, and Deviance)

Some people love the holidays and some people hate them. My feelings are “I like the lights and my very artificial white xmas tree and I would love it if someone bought me a present that I actually wanted, but oh well SNL has a hilarious skit about that, and god this is the most digusting display of abject spending I’ve ever seen and what if we took all of that present money and saved the world’s children, overhauled our shity healthcare system, or stopped climate change?”

Some other xmas joys people tell me they like: the cookies (totally, but only if I don’t have to make them), xmas cards (also very cute, but only if I don’t have to send them), the way people come together at this time to go to parties and drink nice drinks (yeah, that’s good). Please put your holiday joys and gripes down in the comments.

Many of us are reminded of our not great childhoods over the holidays and if that’s you, please enjoy this little story of mine. My relationship with my bio family is strained even in the best of times.. My brother is dying from his drinking, but not currently speaking to me because I wrote and published an essay about the fact that he’s dying from his drinking and how sad that makes me. The essay is also about filling in blanks, essay structure, and addiction, but nobody in my family actually reads what I write, they just complain to me about it and sometimes stop talking to me.

I understand that as a personal essayist with a not great family, I am a traitor and a spy, exposing the world (or my hundreds of readers, no shit, I love you guys!) to the mundane “secrets” of my family that most terrible families share. But they don’t like it, and that’s their right.

Currently, I have an email relationship with my dad, because that’s about all we can both handle. My mother is perhaps the most dangerous one of all because I truly love her and in some ways she saved my life, but she’s also a narcissist who breaks my heart.

We’re coming off almost year of not speaking, initiated and enforced by her (like I was blocked on her phone and she wouldn’t answer emails). I’m not sure why (there’s so much fighting and not speaking), but I think it’s because I got really mad at her for not wanting to take my brother to the emergency room the night he nearly died in his house from complications related to his drinking. She did eventually do it, after I yelled at her and refused to stop calling and then threatened to fly home.

If anyone ever tries to tell you that addiction isn’t a family disease, just walk away.

But my mom recently decided she wanted to have me in her life, so we text and talk on the phone.

Anyway, my mom texted me yesterday, “So what do you and M want for Christmas?” Now, I know this is a trap, and it’s a trap I’ve fallen so many times that as you’re reading this, please do think of Charlie Brown running to kick that football that Lucy promises she won’t move. He does it every time, and she will forever move that football so that he falls flat on his back.

It was the morning and I hadn’t taken my meds, and this daughter, once a little girl who wanted to believe that her parents were capable of making good parenting choices, thought Mommy is going to get us something we want and currently can’t afford (which is lately pretty much everything).

A little side note on tipping. Why tip a writer? I like to think about it the same way you might tip your barista for making you a really great latte and putting a cute heart in the foam. Or maybe it’s like tipping a sex worker on Only Fans for revealing a little bit more of themselves than others might feel comfortable doing. Or you spent a little time with my writing and I entertained you or made you think or helped you pass the time. All excellent reasons to tip someone, right?

So I ran up to that football and I tried to kick it. I texted back, “I’d like a New Yorker subscription.”

She texted back, “A while back they were offering a free gift subscription. I thought you were a subscriber. Anyways, I can send a gift card or cash for clothing.”

And just like that she’d moved the football.

WTF did her text even mean? Why not simply, “Yes, I’d love to,” or “No I can’t afford that, but how about something else you’d like?” Also, all of my parents (bio and step) have money. They refuse to help their children out when times are tough, but hey, that’s their choice too.

Because I’ve done a lot of therapy and I know my parents are so messed up about money, even the smallest conversation about gifts, loans, savings, and debts will blow up in your face, I let it go.

I texted back, “Hey no worries, I’m good.”

Because I grew up in a house where it was not okay to ask for things, it has taken me those twenty or so years of therapy to even learn how to ask for help without dying of shame or rage at having to ask.

Then I got a block of text about how fucked up I am. Then I sent some other texts back that were small reminders about the currently fragile state of our relationship, and if that if she wants to talk to her kid, she better cool it.

I sobbed for a few minutes (because it was little Carley I was dealing with more than adult Carley) and moved on with my day.

Because for some of us, this is what the holidays are about. Ask and you shall not receive. I want to get through this holiday with minimal damage. I want to make it nice for my kid in all the ways it was not nice for me. I also want the holiday to be less charged for her than it was for me. It can just be a chill day with a small bunch of presents thoughtfully given.

Here are a few things my parents couldn’t help but do during the holiday season when my brother and I were kids:

Buy a live, too big Christmas tree and then get into a screaming fight about how to deal with the tree (does it fit in the car, can my dad saw off the bottom, will it go through our front door?) in front of the x-mas tree salesman and then the neighbors.

Threaten to get divorced either right before or after Christmas, as in “I’m divorcing your father on New Year’s Day.” Um, okay, go for it. Please, really, just do it.

Buy a bunch of over the top presents to make up for the year of yelling and beating, thereby locking you into a forgiveness present pact that you couldn’t possibly understand at age ten. “See your mother loves you, she got you that doll house." “Your father loses his temper so badly that his face almost explodes, but he bought you the Nintendo.”

I could go on, but we’ve got other topics to cover today.

Last night, I got an email from my mom confirming my New Yorker subscription. I don’t think this is a happy ending, but it’s an ending.

The CEO Murderer is Bisexual!

I had to write about this.

As many bisexuals this week, I felt both proud and alarmed. I posted on Instagram along with one of his hunky photos (and yes if you must know, his age is the age of most of my dating app suitors, plz kill me because I’m wanted mostly by MILF hunters):

This is either very good or very bad for the bisexuals.

I mean everyone pretty much already thinks we’re sly fuckers who can’t be trusted but are also very sexy. So he’s giving BRAND, as the kids would say.

Photo by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash

Dissociation, Drugs, and Deviance

Maybe because I’m a woman or a professor or someone who voted for a not rapist to be president, and so is obviously pretty disappointed, a lot of people have been asking me how I plan to “deal” with the next four years.

What I’ve come up with is a three part plan called, “Dissociation, Drugs, and Deviance.” I’m not saying it’s going to work or it’s the right thing to do. I’m also not saying it’s good for the whole four years, but I’m starting with it and if needed I’ll make adjustments.

Dissociation. When in extremes ofc dissociation is not good. The AI that Google now forces me to look at when I Google anything says that it’s detachment from one’s thoughts, feelings, memories and identity. I have had a few students who have written about dissociation and I know that it can be awful when it’s a full blown mental health situation. Like you don’t know who you are or what you’re doing.

But we all disassociate when we daydream, stare out a car window, and get lost in a book. As we move into this next Trump presidency, my dissociation will take the form of less engagement and attention. In 2016 until pretty much November 7th I was on social media every day, several times a day, I read the NY Times twice a day, and I read about and interacted with every last horror and nightmare. It fucked me up, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

If the country is watching the Trump show, I’m not. I’m not engaging like I used to because I refuse to give up my mental health for the Republicans, their Christian Right Fascist agenda, and their rapist criminal president. I’m also not playing the little reading games with the mainstream corporate media that I used to.

Besides narcissists love it when you pay attention to them, so I won’t.

I’ll stay informed enough.

Drugs. One of my best friends and I try to live by the stoner rule her husband created for us called, “One Puff.” Do we obey this rule? Sometimes. Do we even like this rule? Not always. But boundaries are helpful. I don’t like to get too messed up, but one or four puffs of legalized weed every other weekend is pretty helpful for NOT LOSING YOUR MIND ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT. I also like a 1-2.5 mg THC gummy and once or twice a year I will eat a square or seven (I wanted to hallucinate more and have a big breakthrough okay!) mushroom chocolates.

I’m a lightweight and I encourage you to be one too. Or take what you need, but let’s stay away from blow, heroin, meth, and excessive amounts of alcohol. We’re just trying to get through here, not wind up dead or addicted because isn’t that what the Republicans would like us queers to be or do. I resist.

Also, if you’re reading this and you’re a teen or even anyone under the age of 25, no weed for you or hardly ever because it’s very bad for developing brains.

Deviance. I’ve always been a feminist, queerdo, socialist, anti-genocide, union-loving, psychoanalytic Marxist, and that’s not going to change. I’m going to continue right on with my deviant ways, now if not more than ever. I think you should too. Protest is deviant. Fighting the man is deviant. Fucking is deviant. Speaking truth to power is deviant. Living your life the way you see fit and not according to some sex-starved manboy holding a novel called The Holy Bible is deviant. Sheltering someone is deviant. Taking care of your friends is deviant. Helping trans youth is deviant. Screaming is deviant.

I could go on. But look, it might be coming at us and people we love from all different angles, so we’re going to have to get creative. Some stuff will go more underground. We have to learn new skills. Does anyone want to teach me how to do abortions? There’s an article about in The New Yorker. I have a lot of prescription drugs (including estrogen and testosterone I’ve hoarded and can share), and I hope that my writing will stay deviant.

Enjoy the typos!

xoxoxo

Carley