Today, I met Jenn’s mom for the first time. We were taking the boys some clothes and food and then got stuck hanging out with her – which is awful for me to say. I should and am ashamed of myself. I am going to set some goals to try to get over this hurdle in my ‘personality’ and I am supposed to schedule a follow up visit with my “Coach” person at the mental health place so I will even talk to her about this. I had plenty of time to think about it because I was stuck driving in silence for hours.

A few days ago, Maddison asked if I would go with her to CC to take the boys their clothes and I agreed for some stupid reason. At the time I didn’t work but at the last minute, Lisa, my arch work enemy, had Internet issues and could not work. I offered to pick up the first half of her shift, because I was driving to CC after which is about 3 hours away.

Everything was broken at work. I took 16 calls before everything completely stopped working and it sounded like I was talking on VoIP on dial up or something. I absolutely detested cell phones when they first came out because most calls sounded like that. I don’t want a delay, static or packet loss on my phone calls. I spoke to 16 people telling me they couldn’t hear me and asking me if they should call back as I repeated, “Don’t call back – the phones are broken, send an email!” The only emails that I actually got were to say the phones didn’t work. I was able to gather enough information to get it reported just to argue with the networking guy telling me “Everything looked good over there.” Until my boss eventually woke up (literally – this was all happening around 8 am) and got someone to actually help. Eventually my phone stopped working and then they fixed the issue except I could never get back online so I ended up leaving for the day 2 hours after I came in and I spent at least 15 minutes trying to reconnect so most of that was in the first hour and a half. Let it be known that I do not function well before 10 – ever.

They tried to get me to come in the office around that time but I explained that driving 30 minutes to work for an hour and 30 minutes to drive home 30 minutes and then to CC and back for 6+ hours did not sound fund at all. Eventually 3 other co workers got online and helped so I could leave. I work from home now so leave just meant – turning off the damn computer and phone.

Maddison had a delay, so she got here about 2 pm. From what I understood, we were going there, spending about 2 hours there and coming home. That is home by 10 easily. If I could be home by 10 it sounded fine to me. I try to sleep on the way and I think she bitches about that so then I try not to sleep as I am trying to sleep, it was all very complicated. We get there and I have to carry groceries in, which I was pretty clear on that I was not there to do any labor but it’s very hard for me to stand around while other people work. Then Jenn’s mom wanted us to go to her storage unit and get things. I don’t know why – maybe Maddison has the keys. So then we were stuck doing that. I have no time to go to my own storage, yet here I am standing around one nearly 300 miles away. There I stand my ground and I am lazy and spend my time messaging the lady or at least playing pokemon.

I had asked Maddison if we could stop by the beach on our way out but I wasn’t trying to make an hour ordeal about it. I didn’t realize we were going to have to go so far for the water either, last time it was right in the middle of towns next to all the restaurants, this time they took me all the way across the bridge to go to port a and I was already over it. I wanted to take pictures and it was already dark. I don’t really want to walk in the ocean after dark, thank you. I did anyway and just risked it because no one cared about what I wanted, clearly. It was about 9 around this time and I had started to make things less than fun since I had expected to be home by 10. I kept making it clear that I was wanting to go home and that I didn’t want to be driving past midnight, but somehow I was not in on her mind games and the Jenn’s mom asked if we could go through downtown to take the scenic route – though it was clear I wanted to leave – so Maddison asked me expecting me to say ‘No.’ Of course I didn’t say no – I just got more frickin irritated because I wanted to go home and I had to go to the bathroom and now we are driving down some street to see something in the dark in the town that she lives in. I just didn’t understand – NOR do I understand why Maddion was making me say “No.” She was the one driving. It was her car and her trip. She is the one that used to live with them. She is the one that knew Jenn for 8 years, I was just there for support because I hate when my friends are brutally murdered – not that it has happened before but I do hate it – and I do hate that I can’t handle acting nice for that long. I am sure many people can act nice even when they felt like I did – but I could not and people don’t like that.

So once we drive around randomly, we went back to her house and she helped Jenn’s mom fill out some sort of application. There would have been another but the website was offline for hours. At this point, I was doing everything I could to try to stay calm because it feels like they are just trying to take longer.

We finally left around 10 but I went to the passenger seat, so she drove and then started bitching about it so I made her pull over to get gas. She said it was because I didn’t bring weed but really I just wanted to be home. I didn’t appreciate her keeping me out so late. I don’t even find it very safe to be driving on the high way after midnight – the worst new stories have articles of wrecks that happen hate at night. She will say that is stupid and insane but I am sure I know someone that would at least agree that could be right.

I don’t think I really understood emotional manipulation before I met her. She will say its all me, but everyone I know will back me up and reassure me that there is nothing wrong with me, even if I let her get to me – including that mental health “Coach” I mentioned. Her name is Sarah, she’s pretty cool. I actually met her at a drag show before I ever met her professionally. She’s actually met Maddison because she has been a patient there but as expected, she has not been consistent with her mental health appointments and I have not missed one since the fight (1/18). Well that is not true. I did not know that I had one of them, so I missed one – but that is all and no one was too mad at me. No we talk on the phone and it’s super fun. I actually haven’t talked to Sarah since Covid – I am sure that can count as missed appt #2 but they have just been closed or whatever – I am not sure.

So when I drive – Maddison is so mad that I am speeding. She keeps yelling that I never drive my car this way – well, I am usually not in my car 3 hours away – 3 hours behind schedule and I remind her that my car can’t even do 100 – and I am not even sure why I was going so fast, except, its a new car and it’s easy to go fast on the high way. I usually use that much pressure to barely reach 80, while going downhill. So she keeps screaming at me about ruining everything and tells me that if I don’t want to drive that I can get out of the car and figure out how I am getting home. This wasn’t even 11 year. When I was down there, I wondered what I would do if she threaten to leave me. She bounces between being a nice normal person and being an evil vindictive person and it’s just so confusing. My mom used to be like that. It has really given me perspective as to what my father had to go through in life and his was way way worse because he did stay because they were his kids and even though she eventually left, he never gave up on her.. well not until we were grown and actually after that. It was June 30, 2016 to be exact. That was the second time I took my mom to the hospital for a psych eval. The next day is the second time the basically forced me to come get her. However, the second time I refused to take her back to his house because I knew that if my mom went back to my dad’s house – someone would end up dead and the other would end up in prison, so I did what I had to do and I paid for the plane ticket that she wanted and sent her to Georgia.

I feel like we all kind of gave up on her that day. My brother excluded, he had passed that judgement long ago. He didn’t have the attitude my dad did when she tried to hit him. He watched it his whole life and knew that she deserved what she got. At the same time, he never hit her. From what I know, my mom tried to punch my brother once. He can recite the story like it was yesterday. Chy was there; she was just a baby. My mom called the police on my brother saying he beat her up over this.

She swung to punch him (which is the most uncoordinated drunk punch you can imagine) and my brother, who was about 25 at the time and actively in marshal arts training, moved out of the way and redirected her energy so she continued into that punch and ended up on the ground. From what I know – she was so drunk, she may not even know how she ended up on the ground but the cops show up after she calls.

Since there is a baby in the house, they ask her if she has somewhere else to sleep. My brother runs down to the neighbors A frame house in the rain and ask if she can stay there, because they had supplied her with the alcohol. They agreed but by the time he returned to the house, she was already getting cuffed. I believe the next lines of the store is that she smarted off to a cop, but I don’t really know what was said. I lived a pretty normal life back then.

My mother is someone that was failed by the system. There is so much about police reform, that is a night that they needed to look into deeper. Starting in 1990, that county should have countless records of my mom abusing my dad but when I called for help in 2016 – no one had any records, no one could help. I called crisis hotlines. I took her to the hospital twice trying to get her help but no one would help. They would shoot her full of adivan, test her, say she is fine. AND then send her home without any medicine or direction. She was seeing the mental health people in her county – its just ridiculous, so I had to just chance it. As it turns out – she has spent plenty of time in jail and repeated the same patterns with the guy she moved in with. He is her next door neighbor from when she was in grade school. She met up with him on facebook and that’s how that happened. For a while, we felt we took advantage of him by sending her but she had her own income through back child support and all. It took a while but I know that we were just protecting ourselves.

I have completely lost track of my terrible night. When I noticed it was almost 11 I told her that I had to pull over to text the lady. She didn’t question it because she knows that I won’t miss that text. So I go to the bathroom and just start crying because I really wonder if she is going to leave me there. I just opened up to M and said some stuff that was on my mind. I cried a lot in that bathroom stall at that random gas station. Even left without buying something because I didn’t have my wallet. Turns out, crying girls can use the restroom with no questions asked and you just get a “Have a good night” from the clerk. Maybe they don’t make you buy something anymore but I thought that was a pretty big deal.

Maddison starts to switch between insane bitch to “Do you feel better now?” I don’t know if she meant because I texted M or something else but I was my charming self and told her I no longer had to shit and I think she may have been on the phone with someone. She continued to complain about my driving. I continued to drive too fast. I told her that I had to work at 8 AM, by 1 AM I am fucking tired. She didn’t seem to understand but I don’t know that she has had a full-time job since I met her.

The end of the story is that somehow I made it home. I left at 2:06 PM and got home at 12:44 AM. It would have been nicer if I didn’t work from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM before following through with this stupid idea. What gets me is that I was there because she needed help driving and asked if I could go. I said, yeah that shouldn’t be a problem in text which is what I am held to but I specifically asked how long we would be there because I didn’t want to be out all night and I thought home by 10 was reasonable.

In my mind, she knew that i would never agree to a 10 hour and 45 minute trip so instead she acted like we would be back in 8 hours and then makes me feel crazy when I start to get irritated when I start to notice there is no way in hell we will be home near 10 and then we don’t even leave by 10. No one there cared at all – and NONE of them work a full time job. Fuck.

Should I mention, I barely ate at all.

So, I messaged the lady a lot because.. she said I could and I kinda really wanted to talk. Damn I hope that kind of things is okay. Turns out I seem to be more fearful that I let myself believe.