My mother

I got mad over a box today.

My mother wanted a shoe box for a package, she’s on a vinted fixation rn.

It’s just a shoe box, my doc shoe box.

It’s not that deep, it’s literally just a box but I like to keep the boxes. I’ve never used it, my docs are in the shoe rack downstairs.

The box just sits under the bed but I like to keep them because I’m weird like that, a little obsessive like that.

Another example of me being weird like that is I still have drawings from my time in high school. Still have crotchet things my ex gave me.

I’m a bit of a hoarder, maybe just sentimental. Depends on who you ask.

Anyways, I completely flipped over the box. Completely unjustified, even I can admit that.

It’s not about the box.

It’s about the phone bill I’m paying for, £60 a month for the past year and a half.

It’s about the countless amount of things i’ve brought for her, gone dismissed or ignored. Sold on vinted or forgotten in the back of a drawer.

It’s about the rent I’ve been paying since the second I got a job, about the thousands of pounds I’ve ‘lent’ and never expect to get back.

It’s about the constant stress of listening to all her issues. The guilt of just living at home, of being depressed, of not being enough.

The guilt of being her son instead of her daughter. The pain of her looking at me and hating what she see’s. Who she see’s.

It’s the years of pain, trauma, the constant struggling just to exist. Of expectations getting higher every time I met them. The disappointment when I just stopped trying. When I got too deep into the depression and I just gave up.

She wasn’t there for that though.

Never once did she wipe my tears. The only reason why she found out about the self harm was because school found out first. Then I got called selfish, she made me feel guilty because I made her look like a bad mother.

Years of anger, of sadness, of pain just pushed aside. Ignored because that’s how we work. We ignore the issues and act like everything’s fine.

Today I got mad about the box, but I left before more words spilt. Before I dragged up the past and present. Before I dragged up the reality of the situation, our situation.

It’s not just the box. It’s the fact that I’ve been giving and giving to her since I was just a child. That I keep giving and giving, not just to her but to anyone I meet because that’s the only way I feel useful. The only form of love I’m used to.

But I fear the well is running dry. I’m running of fumes, I have been for years now. I have nothing else for her or anyone else to take and I’m tired.

I’m so so tired.

I need to get out of this house, a house, not a home. Pictures line our stairwell but it’s still not a home. It’s a place full of old ghosts, full of old memories and traumas.

But I’m stuck because I don’t talk to any of our family, I don’t have anywhere else to go. And the guilt of leaving will eat me alive. Even if I did have the money, the guilt will keep me locked here.

She’s alone.

I can’t leave her alone. But is it worth my own sanity? My own life?