I got woken up from a deep sleep by mom and was instructed to just put clothes on and get out the door to pick her up. She said that she needed time to cook. I told her 15 minutes. I took 5 minutes to curl up under my covers (because I was freezing) and drink my shake. I had lost track of when time was so I really didn’t know how long I had. As soon as my allotted 5 minutes was up, I got up, put on pants and jackets and headed out the door.

I found mom at the hotel’s computer searching up movie times. She proceeded to list off locations and times for How to train your dragon. I didn’t care. I really didn’t care to see a movie but this is one I would like to see. I was on “get mom to home to cook” mode and really wasn’t processing her load of data. She didn’t seem to care. There was a sense of resentment over not really wanting to see the movie and hurrying out the door so that I had to sit and wait while she babbled data at me that I not only didn’t want but wasn’t processing and I had to figure out a way to tell her.

We got going and in the car I am smelling something that smells like Altoids. In the past, I have gotten very sick on Altoids and so the smell makes me nervous, uncomfortable and somewhat nauseous. I asked if she had had an Altoids and she insisted that she was sucking on a lemon drop for her saliva. Then told me a story about a little girl taking her Altoids, blah blah blah. She showed me her lemon drop and it looked like it was a round Altoids thing. I asked could it be a lemon/Altoids thing. She described it and in her description there is the possibility that this “lemon drop” has a lemon outer covering and an altoids like inner center (instead of a lemon drop that I am familiar with which is all lemon candy). But I think she was stuck on the name of Altoids as my issue (even though I kept asking about a mint thing, just that Altoids has that extra kick that takes mint to sick for me).

She then tried to make some joke about it (I can’t even remember what it was and it probably would be a good thing to remember) and it pissed me off. Being out of sorts I let her know how much it pissed me off because this happens over and over, her trying to make a joke, it not being funny and then turning it around to it being about me not allowing her to be funny. This time instead of just putting up with her, I let her know what I thought. She gets to sounding so self righteous about how other people would think she is funny and how maybe the problem with me not finding her funny is not her but me. I hope I don’t do that to other people like she does it to me. I will have to watch for it and I am pretty sure it will be hard for me to see and if anyone stuck my face in it then it would hurt. It probably would have to be pointed out to me softly and let me figure it out for myself. Asking me questions and getting me to dig about some time when I did it would probably work. This is something I would really want to know if I did because I would want to fix it. I may think that someone responding to me badly is their fault but pushing that back onto them is not the way to handle it.

I would like to think that the right way to handle that would be to accept that people respond to things based on who they are and what is going on inside themselves. If they respond “wrong” then the event triggered something in them that led to that response. Approaching it as the problem is with them just leads to them getting more defensive and reinforcing that “wrong” behavior, possibly spreading it into other areas because stuff from me gets marked as not safe. I would like to think I absorb the “fault” for “wrong” response by owning what I did to trigger (even if I think I was in the right and they were wrong). From there I could possibly find out why my trigger got the response it did to find out what is behind what I see as the “wrong” response. With that info I think I could see that my idea of why the response was “wrong” is faulty or I could find out what the “wrong” response is really triggering from. There is a chance that my action combines with something else that sends things down the wrong channel resulting in a “wrong” response. Or I could find out that there just isn’t any way to make heads or tails of it and that I should leave it alone. In the end I still would have x trigger gets y response which means if I don’t like y response then I shouldn’t do x trigger.

My mom and I get caught before this level happens and go around in circles. I think I make complete logical sense and she seems to think that just because she doesn’t mean any harm in it that I should adjust my attitude to match hers. I feel she should earn that trust and should learn why she doesn’t have it. The reason I had trouble with her “joke” this time was because I was having a hard time getting the info I felt a strong need out of from her and was somewhat frustrated with the translation problems. Her timing of the “joke” hit the button of her purposely adding miscommunication to the process. I did not get the feeling that she understood what my problem was and her part in it. She just made a very poor attempt to joke about it. To me this feels a lot like someone razzing you and then saying it is your fault for not being able to take a joke. This really pisses me off.

One thing I learned is that since mothers will still love you no matter what your behavior, the need to control how upset you are feels less. So I let her know how upset this made me. It has been a problem with us for years. She seems to think because others would find it funny that it makes her in the right and that I am in the wrong for not finding it funny and I should change my attitude to allow her more room to move. I think my reactions are my reactions and if you tell a joke and the other person doesn’t find it funny then it isn’t funny. The interaction between two people is between those two people with everything they bring to the table. If something doesn’t work for one of them, then it doesn’t work. Period. You can only change yourself. I guess I do tell her to change her joke making stuff. That since I don’t find it funny, it doesn’t work and to stop doing it because it pisses me off. She tries to tell me to stop letting it piss me off. I think mine is more reasonable but both are telling the other to change.

Mine is a change to avoid a negative outcome. Her’s is to try to remove the negative outcome. I guess I just need to codify the negative outcome. I really don’t like getting pissed off and then dealing with her. Since she doesn’t seem to be willing to stop doing what pisses me off, I should figure out what I need to do when I am faced with that. Right now I want to let her know that when she attempts to tell a joke and fails to make it funny and it pisses me off I will hang up or turn around and deliver her back to her hotel room. Trying to stay connected results in more negative reactions and I don’t like them. I don’t like needing to suck it all in and sit on it so that we can stay connected and have the low simmer resentment. I think this is a very negative reaction and is probably coming from wanting to make a point more than just taking care of my needs. That I am somewhat cutting my nose off to spite my face losing more than I want in the process. But I should figure out something.

So I was in cranky mode and it just got worse. I admitted to being cranky because I didn’t take the time to start the day. I have to do this quick starts every now and then but I usually am by myself for awhile and then in public where there is no direct social contact. I have a chance to get on my feet and be ready to be a social creature. Boyfriends of mine taught me that they prefer to feed me breakfast and take care of me first thing in the morning because I am much nicer and more pleasant to be around if I don’t have to use up my energy taking care of myself. I get breakfast bed so that they get to have the good side of the Gina experience. I have gotten spoiled by this and have a hard time training a new boyfriend in the process. Not everyone can figure out that feeding me before I have to be social and interact with others is a good idea. Especially when I have gotten better at managing the social aspect with lower and lower reserves.

Today I just let it go without trying to control it. The sad part is even though I owned up to me being in cranky mode and it was a me thing, my mom bought into it and was cranky in response. So when I did try to control it and was much better behaved, she would bark back at me and I didn’t have enough room to just tolerate her. We reinforced each others cranky moods and it just got worse.

Mom’s are suppose to put up with our tantrums and take care of us and sooth us and make us feel better. They aren’t suppose to be human and need taken care of and soothing themselves.

We decided that it would be better for her to go back to her hotel and to try to start this day again later. I don’t mind it being a day of mom and the day before she leaves. I do mind it needing to be a holiday we are suppose to spend together and we have to have ham and man & cheese and see a movie because of what day it is. We bought all the supplies for stew and I am ready to just forget about have mom cook it just to take something off the list of “This must happen.”

I am ready for a day by myself, I don’t even feel the need/desire to spend it with friends. I think this is mostly because it is a so called Holiday and while mom isn’t pushing it, she is making me aware of it and it bothers me.

I was quite happy asleep. The dreams weren’t all that great, my friends and I were getting punished for what a huge group of people did, we just were the only ones that agreed what we all did was wrong and stuck around to help clean up. Not fair and other stuff was going on but I would rather be there dealing with that than awake and dealing with this.

Even when life isn’t all that bad, I don’t like it and resent needing to live it. Bah.