When You're Hiding Margaritas in Your Purse... It's Time To Look At Your Life

Life has been hectic. My new way of coping is to stay super busy so I don't have to think about being super stressed. I knew I was neglecting my blog because I didn't want to deal.

But knowing "not wanting to deal" has lead me to be confined to my bed, isolating from friends and eating a lot of string cheese, I thought I'd just journal like crazy and get it off my chest.

I went to one of my favorite Mexican places, Sunday, journal in hand. I ordered a margarita. Margaritas always make me tell the truth. Not always a good thing, like the time by BF and I had them and I ended up telling him I fake my orgasms. That was not a fun night.

Anyway, all the stuff I had to write about this Sunday was about family and the ability of my family to drive me bat shit crazy. I'll publish that entry one day. It's gut wrenchingly honest about how upset I am with my parents.

My Mom is either off her meds or no one is regulating them. She's the one who went to several different doctors to get all sorts of anti-depressents prescribed to her after my cousin died. She then concocted her own tiny meth-like lab in her house where she combined them in all sorts of varying degrees until it backfired an landed her in the emergency room.

That was a fun two months.

After one margarita the steam was pouring out of my ears. Why won't my Dad step up and do anything about this? Why am I the bad guy in all this? Why when I talk to my Dad about her erratic behavior am I called... wait, for it - "too sensitive?"

The things my mother says... they are not the things a mentally well person says to her daughters. Nevermind, that if she is acting this way with me, she is acting this way with everyone. My sister told me four months ago she was cutting off her relationship with my mother. I begged her not to. Why? I guess... I hate conflict. I would much rather ignore conflict. Can't we just all get along? Haven't we all gone through enough?

But the price of silence, of just going along with it, is really heavy. It's not making my Mom better and it's really affecting me and my sisters. There were a lot of reasons I broke up with my therapist. One was I just wanted to deal with my cousin's death more.

But when my friend C, a patient of my therapist, told me my therapist cried in a session with C because something they were talking about made her (my therapist) think of her son's suicide, I felt kinda reluctant to bring up David's death.

So I just paid out of pocket and went there and didn't say anything at all. I have taken politeness to a whole new level.

The other reason - she told me I would be more healthy if I didn't have a relationship with my mother.

I was not ready for that. I'm not ready for that now. Which is why, when I came to that conclusion at the Mexican restaurant, I ordered another margarita. Only, it was too strong. And I had to drive. But I'm thrifty and I had already paid for it. So... I went out to my car and grabbed a cup that I was carrying around for water. And I marched back into the restaurant, dumped my margarita in the cup and then tipped my waiter well for looking the other way and left.

I didn't come to any other conclusions about my family that day. Except that margaritas on a hot, frustrating day are delicious.


This blog is dedicated to waiters that look the other way.

When You're Hiding Margaritas in Your Purse... It's Time To Look At Your Life

The Weight of Weight Part One

Let me break it down for you. I don't want to be a chunky monkey anymore. I WANT TO BE SIZE 8 AGAIN. I'll even take a size 12. I feel awful in my body right now and it stinks to go shopping and see summer dresses taunting me with their cute cuts and colors.

(Yes, I could buy one but if someone asks me when I'm "due", I WILL RUN INTO HEAVY ONCOMING TRAFFIC.)

So there's this girl named Melanie and she always gives THE BEST advice here on my sight. What I like about her is that she is a therapist but she talks to me in a way that wouldn't work with a regular patient because... um, I think it's against the law. Okay, I'm kidding. In therapy, I think the patient is always supposed to come to their own realization. But I don't want to come to my own realizations. That takes FOREVER!

When I read one of Melanie's comments it's always so REAL, DEAD ON - the way a girl friend would talk to you if there was no fear that you would never speak to her again. For instance, after I blogged about "Margarita Emailing" my ex, it's like she whizzed though my DSL line, came through the computer and hit me over the head with a frying pan.

She forbid me to contact him again, told me I was living in the past so I didn't have to face the future and threatened me with boldily harm if I did it again. AND I LISTENED!

Anyway, I have been struggling with weight issues ever since my cousin died. I haven't been eating right and I never work out. I'm the opposite of me.

I want to delve into these issues because of cute summer dresses and I just don't want to live this way anymore. So I asked Melanie if I wrote her a letter about this issue would she take some of what she has learned in her work and write me a "hard ass, tough love" response, unlike what I would get from my own therapist.

So here's the letter. In a day or two, I'll post her response.

Dear Melanie,

This is really embarrassing to admit but I have gained a lot of weight since my cousin passed away two years ago. I've gained, like a third grader... (do third graders weigh 40 - 45 pounds?) Maybe it's a second grader.

The thing is I know how to lose weight, eat less, move more. Put down the beer and bread and eat your veggies and lean proteins! The thing is, I just can't seem to want to do that or go to the gym. I used to be a gym hound. Five years ago, I was working a terrible job with a ton of stress and was at an all time high weight. Then I found my dream job and I wanted a dream life to match. I was in the gym five days a week, ate healthy and lost 60 pounds.

I never felt better in my life. But two years ago, after David was murdered, I was so depressed and I just didn't care what I ate or how much time in bed I spent. It didn't help that I also broke up with my boyfriend and lost my job.

I'm really feeling so much better and positive lately but I wonder - why can't I get back on my program again and get rid of this FAT ASS. I really feel like it's holding me back. I don't love going out or seeing people I haven't seen in a while.

I do wonder if holding onto the fat is so I don't have to move on. The idea of dating again kinda freaks me out, I wonder if the weight makes me feel safe from getting hurt again (okay, tearing up, that must be it).

I'm just in a rut and where I make everything else a priority, this, I totally push aside. Weight has always been something that my parents have been fixated on. My parents know I gained weight as a response of all the changes on my life but my Dad did ask, "Now that you feel better, will you be normal by the summer?" (Okay, tearing up again) I wonder if there is also some anger there and just wanting to be accepted for me.

Either way, the weight I am carrying is just not healthy, holding me back and making me uncomfortable.

Any advice?


This post is dedicated to pen pals.

The Weight of Weight
Part One

The Lunacy of Overbearing Mothers

Today I took myself out for breakfast. There's a cute five dollar breakfast special place near me where you can sit outside. And I decided I was worth five dollars plus tax and tip. I was sitting next to a guy who was with his mother who had just flown in from out of town.

This woman was (and I am not trying to be unkind, just accurate and you'll see, soon, how this keen observation fits profoundly into the story) - this woman was gia-gantic, gi-normous, routund-ness, big-a-licious, back-fat-o-matic.

So she's having a five dollar breakfast special at a cute place where you can sit outside, sitting with her son whom she has flown in to see from undisclosed far away place, and because when all mothers are reunited with their adult children, have obviously read the same manual, "How To Ruin Your Child's Self-Esteem in Ten Easy Steps," has leaned over to him and said:

"You really should go on a diet. At your age, it's only going to get harder."

And if I can also preface that she, of substantial size, was also, NOT only eating a huge bagel, lox and cream cheese, but also eating a HUGE BAGEL, LOX AND CREAM CHEESE, unlike a LADY might. She ate it sandwich style in approximately three bites. That's no lady eatin'.

Her son, who visibly withered after her comment, was maybe ten pounds overweight. That might be "gay-fat" heavy as my gay friends say, but that ain't 30 year-old "hetero-heavy", okay?

I wanted to take my "Fresh and Fruity" (huge fruit plate, side of yogurt and a muffin) and smash it into her face (gently, after all, she is someone's mother). I kept waiting for her to get up and go to the rest room so I could say to her son, "MY MOM JUST DID THAT TO ME, TOO!"

Then we would fall in love and have morbidly obese children who need to be home schooled because they can't fit behind regulation school desks but we wouldn't care because we had learned to actually love your children no matter what they look like.


This post is dedicated to the size XXL.

The Lunacy of Overbearing Mothers

The Importance of Standing Up For Yourself

Sometimes standing up for yourself sucks Holy Balls. Sorry. It just does and Holy Balls is my new favorite expression. Just for clarification, Holy Balls doesn't always have to be a bad thing. You can use the term like this:

"Holy Balls, RadoMom! You won our first contest. The next time you're feeling low about yourself, know that you can pick a dysfunctional Mom's love of vibrator talk, right down to the minute it happens." You are gifted and now you shall be gifted... bath stuffs and such. Now email me at 100DaysinBed@gmail.com so I can arrange to get you your fabulous prize!!!

So here's the thing about standing up for myself. It is totally new to me. Where my parents have come in, it's just been totally easier to go along with everything rather than fight with anyone. Why? Because my Mom can NEVER be wrong so it's always been easier to bend and bow than argue with someone who can never see your side, never admit they are wrong and never take responsibility for their own actions.

My sister and I laugh at my Mom's new Non-Apology Apology. It's like a Passive Aggressive Apology. When she knows she's wrong (but will never admit it) she will say, "I'm sorry for my part."

BUT IT'S ALL YOUR PART!!! Here are some examples of when I've gotten an apology like that.

Mom: "Do you really want to be eating that muffin? (Insert condescending glance at my hips and thighs) It probably has 600 calories."
Mom: "You would think living in L.A. with all the professional hair people someone could show you how to manage your hair."
Mom: "Is that top supposed to bunch like that around the waist? I don't know if that's very flattering."

And know you know why it's been a few days for me to write. Because SHE'S TOO MUCH, it's all too much.

But let's go back to how we ended not speaking to each other. The day was Sunday and my Mom and I were supposed to go down to a beach hotel only I was feeling like we had had A LOT of togetherness. We had had two dinners where she was very critical of where I was in my life and I just wanted a break.

I blogged about that day, when I asked for "space" and was going to have dinner with her down at the beach and then drive up to my apartment and sleep here. I figured her time alone, not counting sleep would be about four hours. I blogged about her flipping out but it went one step further.

She called my Dad crying saying she had to move out of that hotel because it was not how she remembered it. So I went down the next day and moved her back to the hotel near me. Now all week she had been saying how she moved out of that hotel for me. Because now I couldn't be trusted to stay with her like I said I would. I might need "space" again and that's not what my mom planned on.

Finally, I had enough and said, "You moved out of that hotel because YOU wanted to. It had nothing to do with me. You said it wasn't nice enough and it wasn't what you remembered and you didn't have enough places you could walk to. It was what YOU wanted. Don't say you left because of me."

I don't know why this bothered me so much but there is a history in my family of "rewriting" history. Taking something that happened and changing the story to make my Mom look better in it. My Mom would not budge and it got progressively nastier which is what happens when I stand up for myself and assert myself and she feels like she's losing an argument.

She started getting really nasty and said some really mean things, trying to paint me as not dependable, that she couldn't count on me and that I had done the worst thing you can do to a person - "You abandoned me." I said, "I abandoned you at a luxury beach front hotel?"

Really? 'Cause now, I think she's reaching. Just a lil'. But she has to win. But I wasn't going to let her. Because I have all my life. I've just backed down. Adopted her version of the story to keep things cool and non-fight-y.

But I always hate myself. And worse, it permeates all my other relationships. I learn how to switch off in arguments because it's just easier. My "standing up for myself muscles" grow weak and I don't know how to use them anymore.

But this time I did. I just couldn't take it anymore. I could feel her manipulating me, first with her psycho-babble, then her anger, then her tears. But I felt nothing, I was unmoved. You feel nothing and unmoved when you've seen it a million times.

And when it was done, and she was out of the car and out of my Los Angeles life, I did feel something. Proud of myself. It's not going to be easy, our future. I don't know what our relationship will be now that I won't operate in the old way. But whatever it will be, it will be better for me because I'm being real for the first time. I won't be pushed around anymore.

Now that I started this, there's no going back.


This post is dedicated to not taking any s*%t.

The Importance of Standing Up For Yourself

Defending Your Life

Whenever I really worry about something, the opposite comes true. So I thought the fact that I was really worrying about my Mom's trip here, would mean that it would turn into a rolicking free for all, good time, wacky Lucy and Ethel on escapades type trip.

Then I remembered that Lucy really hated Ethel.

Things took a sour turn today (yes, a whole 36 hours into her trip). It might have started before that. She kept saying how worried she and my dad were about me. WORRIED, WORRRIED, WORRIED... like worried reserved for a person who lost their job or went into foreclosure or had a life threatening illness. It was starting to feel like, they were looking at some version of my life that didn't exist.

Yes, I am no longer writing for TV full time - no one I know is. But I am doing the most creative work I've ever done and actually making a good salary... a great salary and know that it's guaranteed for a year. So knowing that she worries about me and thinking the only worry can be about my financial future, I say, "Would it make you feel better to know that I'm making (insert what I think is a great deal of money here) a month?"

"No," she said quickly and tightly.

So we went into Marshalls where she needed to buy gifts for some baby set of twins she knows and we got into a huge fight about whether twins wear the same outfits or dress as individuals but it was SO CLEARLY not a fight about whether twins wear the same outfits or dress as individuals.

Of course, I dropped it because that's what I do, but I was feeling like - what more do you want from me? I have a great life (okay, I don't all the time and you guys know I'M FREAKIN' WORKING ON IT! but I've never let on to my parents that it's anything less than).

I guess I'm mad at being judged by my mother, "Judgy McJudger-stein" like I'm some poor sad sap that they have to worry about. Or maybe I'm mad that the things she should worry about - how I've taken my cousin's death or the loss of my boyfriend have never been addressed.

I was really pressing her tonight at dinner, "What are you so worried about?" I know that I am not some conventional "gonna get married and have some kids kinda girl" so I wondered, "Do you think I'm lying when I say that and you're really worried I'm missing out on something I'm not gonna have?"

She assured me she's always know since I was 14 I would not have kids. So what was it? I've said I'm doing well financially, she'd met all my friends the night before and the night before that. I AM THE PERFECT APPEARANCE OF ALL THINGS HAPPINESS AND LIGHT!

SO, what was it????

She wouldn't say although I was stunned when she said later on, "I just hate that you don't feel good enough for your father and I." I think that's when I really lost it. "What? I don't feel that way. Not good enough? You don't think I'm good enough?" It was like all of a sudden she was speaking some dirty truth she felt about me and there it was out in the open.

I felt like I could take a glass and just smash it into the table, I was so mad. Because I don't feel that way. AT ALL. With all I have to F'ING worry about it has never been about not being good enough to my father and mother.

Well, until now.

Because now she put it on the table, she can't take it back.

Then when I got pissed and wanted her to explain what she meant, she starts with the crying and I feel manipulated like I have my whole childhood when she gets backed into a corner she can't get out of and she plays the "tears" card.

That's it, I was out. As I said to a friend of mine, "Two days down, six more to go!" I'm home and she's at a hotel (The best $300 bucks I've ever spent) yet I could not feel more resentful or more trapped than I do right now.


This post is dedicated to prescription medication.

Defending Your Life

Alone With Her

This blog is updated because a reader caught me "rewriting history" even though I didn't mean to. I will highlight the parts that I changed and if you are curious what set this in motion, please read Martha's comment and my reply to her.
My Mom is coming to visit in three weeks. I want to feel excited and I do feel excited but I feel nervous, too.

We have not been alone since her nervous breakdown.

This past Christmas we talked about my Mom and Dad coming to visit me here in California because my older sister wasn't coming home. Then my younger sister decided she'd like to go have Christmas with my older sister. I didn't want to go back to that house, where it all happened and where I had not been since it happened, and be all alone.

So I invited my parents here. Then the fear came. What if she had another "episode?" Where would I take her? Would they accept her insurance? (I'm very practical.) How would we get her home after?

I thought how I reacted when it first happened the Christmas before last... and it didn't make me feel very capable of being able to handle anything happening to her this Christmas. I'm not quite ready to describe exactly what went on that night, I will just say that I burst into tears and when running for my little sister.

My mother came after me, downstairs. The things she was saying were just... crazy and frightening and even though I can now reason, that was not her, she was not there... all I could do was run, past her and up the stairs to get my father.

E and I had just taken him out to lunch that day to say, "Something is wrong. Something is very wrong." He insisted it wasn't, Mom was fine. He said we should do a toast to all his girls being home. We did and he said, "Don't clink any booze outta my glass."

I know. I mean, he was kidding. But we were all kidding ourselves. Hiding. Having a drink during the day to deal with what would come just that night.

What's strange is, I have no memory of what happened just before it happened. That seems so unbelievable. It was late, why were we all up? Something must have made it happen? What was it?

But it was me who burst into tears and E who sprang into action. First with the plan to get her into bed, then to drug her so we could come up with a better plan. Then hunting and pecking all over the house to find all of my Mom's pills.

I was hiding down in E's bedroom when she brought them to me. There were 6 or 7 bottles. E, "All different doctors." What? Some were anti-depressants. Some were anti-anxiety. Some were sleeping pills. Then E got out my Mom's date book with phone numbers and just started calling. She didn't care that it was 1:00am. She was a private detective, on a mission, trying to put the pieces together of how my Mom, a therapist herself had conned so many doctors into prescibing conflicting meds. Yeah, she's a therapist... so that's probably how.

I did end up pulling my end. It's amazing how we fall into our strengths. E was good with the factual stuff. The talking to doctors, the calling of my Mom's friends to see who knew what when (and shockingly, they all knew, for a very long time...). I was good at cooking for my Mom, sitting with her, keeping her on a schedule.

But I wished I had been E. She had the strength. Although, I did one day (this automatically brings a smile to my face) go into my father's bedroom while he was sleeping, rip off the covers and he jolted awake. "What? What?" he said. I said, "You knew this has been going on for a year. We're not playing this your way anymore. We're playing it my way. And if you back down to anything E or I say, we're getting on a plane and leaving you to handle this all alone."

"Okay, okay," he said.

I had to leave the room, because I was so shocked he went along with it. I didn't want him to see the surprise on my face.

So I guess I have to remember that part of me when she comes out here. I can handle it. I can handle anything.


This blog is dedicated to readers who leave comments after feeling a little awkward that the blogger may have just revealed a wee too much about her family.

Alone With Her