My crazy mom is crazy

She hates the mental illness label so much, and yet, it fits so well.

Anyone who has ever dealt with someone with serious mental health problems knows what I mean when I say that I am worn out, weary, heartsick, powerless, without power, unable to change the situation, sad.

The best acting portrayals I've seen yet, of my mom's particular illness, have been the Billy character on Six Feet Under and Sally Feild on ER. Billy being the better of the two -- Sally got a little too insightful here and there to be my mom. My mom has zero self-awareness, thus, zero ownership of bizarre, confusing, spiteful behavior = really hard to be around and have sympathy for (and yet, I do).

She's so horrible and hurtful and there is nowhere to really go with the fallout from it because her mind is beyond the rules of reason and logic and to lash back is like kicking a dog.

She's like Pinhead from Hellraiser -- throwing out chained barbs everywhere she goes, but on the inside, all she ever wanted was a yo-yo.

We've rallied around her our entire lives, doing the right thing -- not leaving her to be dumped on the world, pumped with haldol and placed in a room or on the street. I'm out of answers for the correct way to respond and deal.

Yesterday was Winnie's birthday and she brought on the chaos to my entire family with special attention to me, Frankie and Winnie. Something switched off in me. It's time to rally around the stable and protect them from the damage that happens in the wake of a wacko.

Every answer has undesirable fallout. I can't wait for the day where there is some kind of Star-Trekkian brain fixer that makes shit connect the way it should.

Big sigh.