Clearing out my basement

I grew up in a dysfunctional family. I know, most people claim this as such when you talk to them. But my family really was dysfunctional. My mother has a personality disorder and my father was an alcoholic. My brother had some of the same personality traits as my mother and to this day i do not have much contact with him. It is sad but he is not a healthy person to be around and expose my son to. I used to feel sorry for him but now i realize that he is pretty manipulative and self centered.

For me, my relationship with my mom was rocky at best. I moved out to Colorado to pretty much get away from a lot of my own family drama. I am not sure if that was the right thing to do but in retrospect it probably was a good thing for me.

Now that my mother is older and i have accepted things about her and also accepted the type of relationships she is capable of, I have to say, we actually have a very good relationship. My mom has a lot of baggage, she has low self esteem and although not diagnosed i believe she has a pretty severe personality disorder. She has the capability of switching off emotionally at the drop of the hat if you "piss" her off. Meaning she will write you off for months or years at a time. Point in case, she stopped talking to her own sister for 20 years.

I think it is sad but she is 80 and she does not get it and i am not wasting my time trying to get her to get it. That is not my job. I can only try my best to relate to her and have some kind of decent conversation with her and let a lot of the things that bug me about her fall to the wayside.

Every conversation is basically about her, so that is how it is. Conversations do not have any emotional content to them. You have to have things that deal with jobs or tasks. These things are concrete and things she relates to and enjoys talking about. She likes to delve in and try to solve things for me or my sister. It is annoying but i let her prattle on with advice because she means well.

Anyway, my point to this blog is that for years before and after I moved out of my parents house i gravitated towards dysfunction like a fly to a pile of dog poop. Every relationship or friendship i had was mired in some kind of drama. It was what i guess i was comfortable with. I was basically a huge doormat that gave but did not get much back. A lot of my friends were kind of abusive but that was what i thought was normal.

It was not until about 6 or so years ago that i really started to "clean out my basement." I like this term which was coined by a good friend that i met about that time. She was normal and gave of herself unconditionally. We are still friends.

As i was complaining about of a long time friend of about 20 years to her, she said "Why do you hang out with her? She is a basement dweller."

I had never thought about it, but she was absolutely right. This was somebody that i met when i first moved out here. She was a single mom, divorcee and an alcoholic. I met her when we were both going to school and we had a lot in common, mostly dysfunctional family crap. She was very needy to say the least and i liked being "needed." So the bond was formed.

I spent a lot of years taking crap from her. She was what you would call an emotional vampire, she took and took and took, dumped and gave very little back in return. When i was able to step outside the relationship and look in I would classify her as a borderline personality type.... my mom personified. It was such an eye opener for me. She played the victim card all the time, poor me and then drank herself into oblivion every weekend. A functional alcoholic.... my dad personified.

At first i felt bad for her and took her side, her ex husband sucked, she never got a break, she had a horrible childhood, nobody wanted to date her because they were all "nuts" nothing about her was wrong. Then little things started to surface each time we hung out. She had no other friends but me and would say things like "None of her friends ever helped her" It made me wonder what she meant by help?

It became clear that she was an endless pit of help, nobody could ever fill up. No matter what i did it was critiqued and never quite good enough. I gave gave gave and got almost nothing back. I began to actually feel bad for her ex husband.

One thing led to another and i finally blew my cork on her. Not the best thing. She gave me a scalding email after i decided not to meet up with her one night. I started to dread doing anything with her because it was so draining for me. She sucked every ounce of positive out of me and then made me feel bad for doing anything well in my life "You get all the breaks" "You have Alan, I have nobody" "You had help" all wrong of course. The only reason i had anything myself when i was able to step back and think about it was because i worked hard for it. I did not believe in the victim mentality.

Well after she sent the email to me i kind of lost it and then sent an even worse one back. I guess if i had been honest with her from the gitgo and actually talked to her about the things that were bothering me, maybe we would have had a more amicable "break up" instead it was kind of ugly.

So from that point on i had nothing to do with her. It was sad in a way because we had been friends for so long. But was it really a friendship that was positive or nurturing? No. It was unhealthy on so many levels. To be honest i felt relieved by the break up. Sad but true. After that point it made me open up to new healthy friendships. Now it is not just her and I and the enemies, it is myself, dinner and good friends.

Over the weekend i pulled up to my favorite spot with my son, Unique Thrift Store. We were on a hunt for some cool puzzles to do together. In front of me i spied a bright yellow jeep. It was her. I pulled into a spot several cars away from her for fear of being spotted. She pulled up to the liquor store and got out. I got out after that. I did not want to make any excuses to talk to her again. I know now i never want to have her in my life. No more basement dwellers.

After i got back home i started to feel sad for her. I felt like, what kind of existence is that? Drink all weekend by yourself in front of the TV. Wow, that is sad. Here i was trying to pack my weekend with as much fun as possible and she was by herself drinking. It was a sad moment for me to think about what kind of life that was. I could not even fathom it at this point. It made me appreciate all i had in my life and even with my own up and downs I was not addicted to alcohol. I could have been. I am so glad i cleaned out my basement.

Life is good for me. I know, that sounds corny but it is so true. I can go down my own little pity path just like the former basement dweller but i don't go there. To go there is so wrong because the things that upset me or make me stressed out are really so minimal when i step back and look at them. I focus on what i have, not what i don't and also focus on what i have left to accomplish in my life, which is alot. I want to travel, i want to get out of debt, i want to keep going in my running and improve and maybe get my PHD one day. Who knows?

For me life holds endless posibilities and is too short to make excuses or play the victim card. What an incredible waste of energy.

The one positive thing i took from seeing her, now i realize how much time i wasted trying to fix a bad relationship. I know now that as I get older how precious life is and that spending time with people that drain you is such a waste. Now I choose who i want to spend time with and it has to be for me. What do i get out of the friendship and does it nurture me? That is so important to me now. I cherish the friendships i have and realize how important those are to me.