I can’t do this.

I did not want a party with my mother and her friend, no. My birthday is something to mourn, not celebrate, in my opinion. I didn’t want another reminder of my age, considering where I’m at in my life right now. And I don’t even really like this person. And I hate having to be fake-happy for other people when I just want to curl up in my room and be left alone. The puppy is helpful when she’s calm and I can cuddle her, but when she’s in a “let me see how annoying I can be and how much trouble I can get into” mood and I’m already stressed to the max, it’s the opposite of helpful. I wasn’t even asked what I thought about any of this either, regardless of how much it impacts me (like how my mother is at work all day and I’m stuck here with the puppy so I can’t get things done – such as going through my stuff to get out of here). It’s like telling someone you’re giving them a two-year-old child to have to take care of all day whether you like it or not. It was all told to me after the decision had been made, and then if I have a problem with it, I’m the bad guy. It puts me in an unfair position. So now she’s found a home for the puppy – not until this Thursday – but we’ve grown attached to her and she keeps making passive-aggressive comments about how hard it will be to give her up, etc.

Yes, I did have a calm talk with her about the puppy thing last weekend when she found her this new home. I told her how I have recurrent dreams, years later, about the dog and cat we used to have… I dream they’ve been out in the snow, freezing, for an extremely (unrealistically) long time, like a year or something, and I had forgotten, and I open the door and they rush in, giving me those big sad eyes, and I feel like a horrible person… because when I did have a dog and cat, I was at rock bottom and couldn’t care for them properly, so the guilt has haunted me for the last decade. She knows this, and then she still chooses to get a puppy when I can’t handle it and guilt me over it.

And regarding this birthday thing, she claimed to have asked me how I’d feel about it a few days ago. She definitely did not. She was diagnosed with dementia a couple months ago, and sometimes she completely forgets a conversation happened, or sometimes it’s the opposite, she thinks we discussed something we never did. She gets very confused but she truly believes these things. But she definitely did not ask what I thought, because what I thought was “I’d rather not!” And yet here we were.

I understand my OP might have seemed whiny. For a bit of context, this is a woman who sees me as an extension of herself, has clipped my wings since childhood to keep me dependent on her. She has “caregiver syndrome.” She needs to be able to provide for a helpless person, and if such a person isn’t readily available, she finds one to MAKE helpless. That’s always been me, her only child. She treats me like an incapable child, because that’s what I still am to her, that’s what she needs me to be in order for her to fulfill her role. She’s at her best when I’m at my worst so she keeps me down.

When I made a chocolate pie for Thanksgiving a couple years ago (a big deal since she never lets me do anything, but not a big deal because chocolate pie is literally a matter of boiling pudding mix and milk, then pouring it into the premade crust and refrigerating it), she told everyone on the phone afterward, “She made a chocolate pie all by herself!” Exact words. All by myself. As if I was five years old, not 30. And I hadn’t even made it “all by myself,” she had to micromanage every fricking thing, even down to how I held the spoon when I stirred.

When she was driving my car on a rainy day and saw my wipers were bad, she said, “I need to get you new wipers.” … not “You need new wipers” or “You need to get some new wipers” or anything like that. No, SHE had to get them FOR me. Those are just a couple of thousands of examples. It’s constant and insidious erosion of any sense of self-worth and confidence I might manage to build up. She constantly breaks me back down.

She picks fights. She’s dramatic. If I try talking to her about some of these things she says, for example, she’ll sigh and say, “Well I’m sorry I can’t say things just right!” and act like she has to walk on eggshells because I’m so unreasonable or whatever. She’s told others she feels like she “can’t say anything right” around me. I’ve told her over and over, “it’s not about saying it “right,” it’s just that the way you say things does matter as much as what you say. Your word choice, your body language, all that matters… And it’s not a personal attack, I’m just trying to point it out to you so we can have a better relationship. I know you want to help me, and I appreciate that, so I’m trying to show you what does help and what doesn’t.” It sends her into a defensive rage. I’ve managed to get her in with my therapist for one visit, but that went in one ear and out the other. When I was a child and she had me in therapy, they’d realize there was nothing wrong with me, I was just the “target patient,” so they’d try to talk to her, and she’d get furious and say “they want to say I’m a bad mother!” and immediately switch therapists. And when that one caught onto things, rinse and repeat. You can almost never reason with her, whether it’s me or a neutral third party with years of professional training… Now that I understand her complex, her sickness, her need to have someone helpless be dependent on her, to have complete control… now it makes sense. It’s not about me, it’s about me filling a role so she can fill hers. I’m really not a person, I’m just a pawn so she can feel okay. She doesn’t know how else to be in the world. Which is sad but omg I’m sick of it, I want to be a real person. Hence my username…