This is likely gonna be trigger so if you not in a good place, you might wanna move along now. Self care is a good thing

This would probably go better in the acoa forum, but I'm most comfortable here so here I post.

So my mom is 77, I am 41. I don't think she has been sober for more than 5 years of my life. I lived with her for three of those years (13-16) and in that time she found jesus and apparently he told her to discipline me, so yeah, not like those three years were good ones either.

In my younger years she did cocaine, then ran out of money and did crack. The whole time she kept the booze party up and running. I wonder sometimes if she did coke and crack just to be able to stay up and drink longer. She was awful when she was messed up. The best times of my early life are the times she'd vanish for days at a time. My dad was just gone, but they never did divorce.

Anyway, she was throwing up blood yesterday. It started at something like 1am and m dad finally took her to the er at 2pm yesterday afternoon. My dad was surprised when they diagnosed her with cirrhosis. He said he was anyway. He knows she drinks more money a month than he pays for their house...who is he kidding... meh.

She has those veins (esophageal varices), and um the mood disturbances (hepatic encephalopathy), and the stomach bulge (ascites), sh has all kinds of symptoms of cirrhosis. A few months ago she had a nasty fall and her doc put her on all these pain meds and yeah, symptoms went from bad to worse.

I don't think she's gonna make it to the end of the year. I might be wrong. I've been wondering for the last five years or so how she is still alive with all that's been going wrong with her.

Anyway, I'm not sad. I'm not shook up about it. I'm not really numb or anything like that. I had a moment where I wondered if I was a bad person for thinking how I wouldn't much care if she died. But really, what would I be missing. And isn't that why people mourn? Because of what they will miss, who they will lose? What am I losing? Someone who made my early years hell and someone I avoid like the plague as an adult? And then I think again, "Quit it you *****. People don't talk about their mothers like that!). But I do.

I don't hate her. I understand why she did what she did and why she does what she does. Her life sucked as a kid, to say the least. Dysfunction can breed dysfunction. I get it. I don't like what I lived, but I get why she did it.

I forgave her. I didn't tell her that. If you say something like that to her she will tell you about how you ruined her life or something. But the important part is I said it to me. I'm not holding a grudge. I also give myself room to get angry when I get that way. It helps me keep appropriate boundaries and keeps me moving in the right direction if I can remember to channel it that way anyhow. Heh. It's a work in progress. Yep. But I think I am gonna try to get out to see her tomorrow. I'm not much worried about it, she's not with it anyhow. In part that is for her, in part for me. I made a promise to myself that if I could, I would try to be there when she was dying. In my mother's entire life, her own mother never once told her that she loved her. Even when she was dying, my grandma never said that to my mother. I told myself I wouldn't pull a grandma on my mom. She gave me life. I can give her that.

So yeah, sorry this is so long. It''s been a weird couple of days. If you read this mini novel, I thank you.