i guess it's time to talk about my relationship with my mom

Last night I had a nightmare that my mom was following me around the airport, and I was trying to get away. I was trying to tell the person I was with that, “I don’t talk to my mom, I need to get some space from her while we’re here.” And every time I would try to move away from her, my legs just kept shrinking, they wouldn’t work. I couldn’t move anywhere. My husband told me that I was freaking out telling him that my legs didn’t work (out loud while we were sleeping in bed).

My relationship with my mom is on and off, but I think I’m finally going to say it’s probably at it’s wits end and will be for awhile. There are a lot of things that we don’t agree on, and how I was treated during my childhood and young adult years is one of them. The treatment and befriending of the man who is my primary childhood trauma is also something we disagree on completely.

There. It’s out in the open. My mother is friends with my child molester, and says that it’s because she thought I had forgiven him a long time ago. She tried to put it in an email saying that I forgave him, but I will be the first to tell you, that NO, I have NOT forgiven him, nor will I EVER forgive him. So I will not be talking to my mother while she is still friends with said man-child.

It’s hard. It’s hard to know that she was willing to take herself out of my life and my child’s life for the sake of her pride. The first grandchild from her children, and she’s totally fine with removing herself from the photo. That’s really fucked me up. Did my mom ever care about me?

I used to ask myself this question a LOT last year. Last year I reached out to my mother because I tried to overdose in Korea. She left me on read. The next time she contacted me was when she accidentally “butt dialed” me when she was trying to call my dad. Then she proceeded to call me the petty one for being mad at her for not reaching out to me. She blamed me. She said she had her own things going on.

Did my mom ever care about me?

This woman already lost a child once. Is she immune to pain if she lost another one? Is that why she didn’t reach out to me to see if I was okay? Is that why he was swept under the rug?

She asked me in an email, “you’re a mother, what would you have done? Put yourself in my shoes… Did you expect me to show up across the ocean?!”

Yes, yes I did expect you to show up SOMEHOW. Fuck, a reply message maybe in the beginning? A CALL? Fuck, I don’t know. Make sure I’m not dead maybe? Nothing guys. This is the woman who will sell life insurance using my brother as a sob story, but won’t check in on her psychotic daughter when she says she needs help.

No wonder I’m so fucked up in the head. Cats outta the bag. I’ve been holding onto this too long and my heart can’t take it anymore.

is it morally wrong to sit and watch people get manipulated just to save someone some face?

Honest question, and I would really like if everyone replied to this one in the comments. I am genuinely interested in seeing what people have to say about this situation right now.

You have a friend who has been going through some hard times lately. That friend is getting help now. But you notice a lot of the things that this friend says doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t add up, or just blatantly lies to people about their past life. Whether it’s for pity, for attention, or for whatever else kind of game they’re playing, what do you do to the others? Do you tell them that there is an imposter among us, or do you just let that imposter kill of the livelihood of these people with their manipulative lies?

Now see, I’m not usually the one to call people out on their shit when I see it happening in front me, especially if it doesn’t hurt anybody. But in this case, it is hurting people - to include myself and my good friend. It HURTS to see other people get DRAWN IN by this “cry wolf” scenario, especially when you know a lot of the back story, you know the truth, and it’s just fucking irritating.

I’m in therapy for me, but I think that this little “friendship” has gotten to the point where I cannot believe I lived in a lie for the last 1.5 years. How much have I been manipulated to think that all of these things were true? And you know what is crazy, is that a piece of me still wants to give benefit of the doubt and say that this person is just that fucking stupid to continue placing themselves in these dumbass situations…but ugh…

So - WHAT DO YOU DO? Do you expose this manipulative asshole? Or do you let the group fall down the rabbit hole of lies and deception? TOUGH RIGHT?

if it’s draining my energy, i’m leaving

Too often do we find ourselves in relationships (romantic, platonic, familial) that are exhausting to us. Why do we stick around for people who aren’t good for us? Why do we stick around if all we do is feel drained, unloved, unappreciated, and sometimes replaced? Today our afternoon topic was to go over what a healthy and unhealthy relationship meant to us. A few people said that romantic relationships were the most important to them, some said friendship was the most important. Surprisingly, no one said family relationships, which wouldn’t be my choice either.

To me, my romantic relationship is the most important relationship in my life. Sean is my best friend. He is the only person I really talk to openly about things that are bothering me. There are a few things that I haven’t opened up about, but those are things that I’m still hesitant to open up and deal with at this time. Overall, we’ve got a pretty good foundation as friends since most of our dating relationship was spent building trust over Skype and Viber when he was deployed.

I think next would be friendships. This is something I’ve always really struggled with. I usually don’t vibe well in groups, but I’ll do really well with 1 to 2 people. I was doing really well here in El Paso, or so I thought. It’s been a struggle trying to figure out what’s real, what’s not, and if my feelings of “being played” and “manipulated” are real. I hate that feeling. I hate feeling like all of the effort I put into building a friendship all went to a waste. First I felt replaced and then slowly thinking about a lot of things I felt manipulated - which is unhealthy.

So right now, I’m taking the time away to clear my head and my emotions. I’m not good at talking to people when I’m angry or disappointment. It usually turns into an argument, me pushing blame on them, or just goes into flames. I don’t want that. I do want to think about all the good and bad, and see if that friendship is really worth pursuing. The only thing is, I won’t be the one to act first. I’ve learned that I am the kind of friend who will show up on your doorstep to make sure you’re okay or to fix things, if you aren’t willing to do the same with me, then I don’t think it’ll work out. Equality in a friendship is important. I know that there will be times that my friends need me to pour more for them cause their cup is empty, but I am hoping that they do the same back when it comes down to it. That’s all.

i honestly don’t even know how to write about today

I was so annoyed with how the events of today happened, but was relieved to find myself cool, calm, and collected with a friend at the end of the day. If I can think of what I want to write or how I want to write it, maybe I’ll post an update… For now, I’m just going to let all the events of this week simmer in the back of my head. Why? Because I CHOOSE what I react to and how I react to it. I CHOOSE what bothers me. Do I want to waste my energy on this, or do I just let it go like I always have with friends before? It’s a tough decision, but at least I’m not in it alone.

Update on 11/16/2020:

I didn’t want to start a new post, because I have something else I want to write about today a little later. I took the time to see or hear exactly what happened yesterday that lead to the events making me feel the way I did. And honestly, I was underwhelmed with everything. Maybe because it wasn’t my issue, but I still felt disappointed (still do), and I felt unappreciated, and honestly, replaced. Replaced is the word I feel the most.

I feel replaced because since July of this year, I chose to take this person and their well-being on, and make sure they were okay. Our “friendship” (from what I thought) had grown more than I thought it would, and I genuinely cared. Building trust in each other, opening up, checking on this person when there wasn’t anyone else around. Protecting this person when I could, not just as a friend, but as a nurse. I would go toe to toe with anyone who tried to hurt this person. But clearly, it shows, that anyone is replaceable, even me.

Because a group schwoooped in somehow and undid all the things I thought was the foundation of a strong friendship. I’m not usually one to demand acknowledgement, but when you’re asked, “who is someone you can depend on here?” WHILE I’M SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU, KNOWING I’VE BEEN THERE SINCE THE MOTHER FUCKING BEGINNING OF ALL THIS - and you say “THE ORIGINAL GROUP.”

Well, FUCK ME THEN RIGHT? I wrote a post the other day because I thought we had cleared the air. But yesterday and today, for this person to rally people to tell me I SHOULDN’T BE ANGRY, nah bitch. I ain’t got time for that. You know where the fuck I live. I showed up on your fucking doorstep every god damn time.

It’s your fucking turn to show up as a “friend”. I went through it for you. I’m not one of these people saying that, “I would hypothetically go through it with you.” Like, I was fucking right there beside you.

But fuck me, right? Well, fuck you too.

Three years into our story: Happy Anniversary to us!

I can’t believe Sean and I have hit our 3-year mark already! Yesterday we celebrated our proposal anniversary. That’s right, Sean and I got engaged the night before our elopement. I love telling our elopement story because it’s so different from the traditional wedding; it’s so… us. And I love bringing these photos back up because to this day it is still my favorite set of photos. Forever grateful to one of my favorite photographers, Carolina, for capturing our first milestone as a couple.

Sean and I met in 2014 after I came back from LDAC. It was unexpected for me to fall so hard for Sean since I had just gotten myself out of a whirlwind of a relationship, and I had just found my footing again being myself. But there was something different about Sean that kept my attention, and it was probably the fact that he and I seemed to be the same person (for the most part, I’m definitely meaner than Sean is). Sean and I dated all throughout college. We were apart for some time because of his career and my school was on the other side of the state. When I graduated from nursing school, my career brought me halfway across the world to Europe. That’s how we found ourselves in Copenhagen, Denmark.

We had a very intimate ceremony at the Bryllupsalen in Copenhagen’s City Hall. It was just us, his parents, sister, and my mom… and my mom’s random friend. If I had to choose to have a traditional wedding, I’d choose a place with the same aesthetic as the Rådhuspladsen. Every moment of our elopement felt like it was in a fairy tale.

After our ceremony, we walked over to the Botanisk have (Botanical Garden) for our photos. When I saw this place online, I knew that it was where I wanted my photos taken with Sean. It was definitely the best way to capture our fairy tale elopement. What I loved about Copenhagen, is that on the entire walk to the garden, everyone was congratulating us on getting married. So it was like we had a giant wedding party of strangers throughout the entire day.

So where are we now?

Sean and I still ended up spending about 1.5 years apart after we got married. When it was time for him to move duty stations, I put in the paperwork to follow. I left my European dream early and moved to Korea. We were still apart in Korea by 4 hours (due to Seoul traffic) but it was better than being a hemisphere away. We were lucky enough to escape Korea, and move to good ole’ Texas together. We aren’t fans of living here, but we’re grateful that we are able to be together especially since we’ve started our little family here.

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Dear Babe,

I can’t believe that you and I have made it to three years! It doesn’t feel that long, but it also feels like we’ve been together for so much longer. The past 3 weeks, I’ve loved watching you learn how to be a daddy to Maverick. From the moment that you held him, it’s like we were complete. I know that there have been some trying times we’ve had together, but I’m so glad to know that we work as a team to get through it all. Building our temporary home in Texas has been so much fun, especially since we finally have just one household. This upcoming year is going to be crazy together as we learn our new roles as parents, but I can’t wait to see where it takes us. I love you so much! Maverick and I are lucky to have you in our lives.

Love, Jakki