So, it came to my attention that after my Christmas Day aside, people may be concerned and want to know what happened afterwards. (And my lacklustre posts over the last few days might not be helping matters…) Anyway, I can oblige.
Boxing Day began with my mother pretending nothing had happened, and I ignoring her, as I would not pretend nothing had happened. Again, she got extremely drunk and picked a fight with me that night. She demanded to know how it was possible for cigarette smoke to make me feel sick, and proceeded to throw a tantrum because I answered the question (instead of getting flustered — she believes, at least when drunk, that it is impossible for cigarette smoke to make anyone feel sick, and therefore insists I pretend to feel sick just to piss her off). Apparently afterwards my sister Emma, overhearing the argument, approached mum to tell her she was being a “drunken cow” (that was how Emma described the argument) and our mother got even more angry. She ranted at length about how Emma and I were “ungrateful bitches” (grateful for what, I wonder? Verbal abuse? Damn, of course we should be grateful for that!) and so on.
Anyway, I was so angry about it that I stayed up until almost 4am telling Dad that something urgently needed to change (and venting generally, of course…). He agreed.
So, on the 27th, Dad told my mother that her behaviour was unacceptable and this constant drunkenness could not go on, and it seemed that she took this to heart and she hasn’t really been drunk since Boxing Day. Things have been okay.
It’s hard to be totally optimistic because it’s only been three days. I’ve seen periods of time where she’s been better for three days and then relapsed — after this crisis, for instance, she drank very little for two or three days and then went right back to her old ways. And tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. I have hope, but only because I always hold out some degree of hope and I really want everything to work out. We will see what actually happens.
But if Dad can exert pressure on her once to achieve this kind of result, hopefully he can exert pressure again. Certainly it’s not like Emma or I could. I think in my mother’s mind we’ll be ten years old forever, and that means she never gives our opinions any weight (especially Emma’s, which she tends to dismiss with the words, “But you’re fifteen.” — so okay, she realises we’re not ten, but she TREATS us like we are.). But Dad, well, she can hardly dismiss him on the grounds that he’s too young to know what he’s talking about.
Anyway, I’m doing fine, and thanks for your concern, everyone.
