Merry…Why Bother?

It wasn’t as bad as last year when she threatened to leave me alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere. Or the year before as she berated me for buying her something difficult to assemble to the point I was in tears.

It only recently came to me that she is a mean drunk, an epiphany. Alcohol was involved in bad Christmases.

This year, I was so grateful to be home.  An immediate depressive pall settled over me. Another year,  another failure.  If you can’t say anything right, don’t say much at all. Virtually anything set her off. She threatened to send me home in a cab one time for saying something about her being an ‘abrupt drinker.’ I couldn’t get a buzz because she kept bringing up times I vomited. One instance, the other must have been when I had food poisoning, but she remembers it as me drunk. It’s best not to argue. And still, I think I was somewhat spared because her boyfriend was there. No name calling happened and he wasn’t immune to her being a bitch either. She got mad at him for being loud in the kitchen as he strained plastic from a blended drink. Somehow a fake ice cube had got put in with real ice in the blender. Maybe next year will be better, but not likely.

Dollar Tree Haul: Desperate AF Last Minute Gift Ideas

An Average Orphan

Generally, I’m content in my solitude. My mother’s ashes are nearby, but mainly disregarded in the discount crematory plastic box. One day, when I have the courage to fulfill her wish to be scattered at sea. I can’t let go yet.

It’s the overt stuff that reminds me I’m alone. My social worker, the most tactful woman on earth said, “Don’t you have any family? Your mother’s gone? Not even cousins?”

No. But it’s not entirely true. I have some second cousins, but they made it clear as my mother lay in the hospital morgue that they wanted nothing to do with me.

And then I made someone mad while he was drunk and he told me I wasn’t his bartender, his mother, and NOT HIS FAMILY. We aren’t even friends, but he knows more or less, an outline of my life. While I can’t be certain, I think he meant to cut me to the core. Perhaps he is trying for my own good to excise the unfortunate feelings that crept up on me. Were I beautiful, an uber socialist SJW, and maybe 12 years younger, maybe I would  have said something to him someday…if he didn’t think of me as an ugly, naive sow.

It’s almost my 42nd birthday, and I’ve found out a few things about myself within the past week. Though the consensus of people I casually meet is that I’ m an imbecile, the truth is I’m average. My psychological evaluation says I have a 96 IQ. When I picture a 96 IQ, I imagine me in a MAGA hat with a Q-anon T-shirt, waiting to get into a Trump rally with some of his more gnarly supporters. But at least I’m not mentally challenged. I probably do have a learning disability, which is super nifty to know now that I haven’t been in school in 20 something years. My vocabulary is high average, my processing speed is borderline MR. Ain’t life a bitch? I guess that neurologist when I was 11 was right about me having mild cerebral palsy.

Though the psychologist only put unspecified learning disability, looking around Dr. Google, I think I have “nonverbal learning disorder.” It’s a little bit like being autistic without actually being autistic.

Egads, I also have GAD. Not terribly surprised by this either. I don’t have to obsess on something to be anxious, so I have 2 anxiety disorders.

I don’t have a personality disorder, but I have characteristics of both dependent and avoidant personality disorders. Charming.

Other fun observations include that I’m slightly older looking than I am, that my hygiene is ‘fair,’ and that I’m a troubled and insecure woman. Oh, and a bit of a hypocondriac, I despise myself, and I’m disappointed in my looks. Beautiful, Lisa.

“….but I’m not stupid.” That will be my mantra from now on.