Nightmare Family Visit: Part 1

It seems my life is at another crossroads. I had a nightmare weekend. I went down to my mom’s house in New Jersey to help her; she has a form of ALS, commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It’s not only heartbreaking to have a parent with such a debilitating illness, it’s also… what’s the word I want to use… it’s also life altering for you as an adult child. Especially when your parents are divorced and your mother doesn’t have a partner to step in and take care of her like she deserves to be. The cherry on top is that my two sisters are not any help – they actually cause MORE problems when they come around.

My younger sister, Rachael, moved in to help my mom when I moved up to New England to finally start building my own life with my fiancé, after dedicating 10 years of my life to being my mother’s sole adult child caretaker. I was happy about that because it gave me a level of comfort knowing that my mom wouldn’t be living alone since she can’t take care of herself due to the ALS. But, Rachael always screws things up. She moved in with her two kids and their father, who is a complete psychopath. He kicked holes in doors, broke mirrors that have been in our family for generations, smeared my sister’s makeup all over the shower-tub in the bathroom upstairs, and (from what my mom told me) held a gun to Rachael’s head, threatening her life. He moved out and took the kids back to the city with him after being there a few months of his rain of chaos because he found out that Rachael was sleeping around with another guy that lived near my mom’s house… who turned out to be an even bigger psychopath than the first one. I honestly didn’t think it was possible, but leave it to her to find the sickos. She has the worst taste in men… and they’re not even attractive! My sister is beautiful and could easily get a really wonderful guy if she stopped looking in the wrong places.

I didn’t really believe that part about the gun as my mother tends to embellish. BUT the last time I was there visiting, I was lounging on the sofa after my sister, my mom, and I smoked some weed. I heard my sister come in and sit on the other sofa, she called my name to get my attention and pulled out a huge glock from the center storage built-in the arm rest of the couch… she leaned forward with it and smirked. It was shiny silver and wrapped in one of my mother’s handkerchiefs. I asked the obvious questions: “Is that yours? Or is it Tony’s?”

“Yeah, it’s mine. I mean it is Tony’s, but I know how to use it” she replied casually.

When they lived there before, he kept a fucking machete on their nightstand. This wasn’t the bad part of the city that they’re used to living in. It’s the Jersey Shore. It’s a small peaceful (for the most part) town.

My cloudy mind was in shock regardless. My mom wasn’t being dramatic when she told me about it. Which means she probably wasn’t lying to me when she said Rachael is pregnant with psycho #2’s baby. Who stopped by just a few hours after I arrived at my mom’s during that visit. He was drunk. My sister was stupid. I heard her screaming outside and my mom’s eyes widened and she told me to go out there because he is hurting her. I was so confused. I walked out back and saw him with my sister’s arm locked behind her back. She was crying and kept yelling “RJ get him off me, RJ get him off me!”

I walked right up to them and told him to let her go and I grabbed her to get her out of his violent grip, “She has my phone, tell her to give me back my phone” he slurred.

Once released, Rach ran into the house and locked herself in my mom’s bathroom with his phone. Scrolling through his photos and conversations, yelling out what she was discovering, “He’s been texting some chick and she talked him into sending her pictures of his dick!”

I impatiently attempted to get her to unlock the door. When I stepped away to get the little key to poke through the hole, I heard a BANG. He busted through my mom’s bathroom door and grabbed his phone out of the toilet. Then ran out the back door to his car. I followed and saw Rachael darting out of the front door towards his car. She lunged herself into his window and was howling “WHY?! JUST TELL ME WHY?! WHY?!” I cut my finger while trying to pry her out of the window. The psycho was backing out of the driveway and ran over my right foot.

I wanted to wake up and find this all to be a vivid nightmare. But this is my reality. I was born into a crazy fucked up family. I always visualize myself visiting my family and cooking dinner together, sitting and talking about life for hours, watching movies, and sometimes smoking a little pot. My idea of a good time. I always forget the family in my head is never the one that shows up.

And I now realize I’ve rambled on for paragraphs about this one particular visit instead of writing about what I originally had in mind. I should have written this after coming back home from that visit. I’ll make another post about my most recent visit this past weekend to help my mom, after Rachael ran away to the city with her kids and their father. She was supposed to only visit for a week and then come back with the my niece and nephew. She left the middle of February and it’s now March 10th and she hasn’t returned.

Part 2 coming soon…

Moving to Another State Can Mean Exciting Changes AND Excitable Anxieties!

Moving to a new state offers sort of an opportunity to reinvent the mundane in your life. It gives you the ability to make things exciting again! A cliche fresh start; new job, new home, new surroundings, new places to explore, and even potentially new friends, if you’re not an introvert with agoraphobia… like me! I actually like to call myself an introverted-extrovert because I am rather reserved, for the most part, but I can be very outgoing and social in some situations. It turns out I am not alone!

The term for individuals who “have more of a blend of introverted and extroverted characteristics” are called ambiverts.

Simine Vazire, PhD, director of the Personality and Self-Knowledge Lab at UC Davis.

But I digress into the subject of psychology due to its fascination. Back to the main topic; moving and the changes that come with it.

I have been through a series of unimaginable events this past year. I’ve been lucky enough to have taken some time off of work. I don’t have a typical 9-5pm job. I have a career in sales as an Independent Contractor… not sure if I want to mention the industry… yet, anyway.

The other benefit of my type of career is that I can do it in any state. So after moving and taking a year-long break from working, I decided it’s time to re-enter the workforce! I was in talks with a specific company to move my business with them in Connecticut. The, of course, my plan had been derailed due to my family back in my home state of New Jersey.

Now, after taking care of personal things and cleaning the load off my plate, I’m ready to get back to work again! However, the – we’ll just call him a local manager for now – that I was supposed to meet with towards the end of 2019 is ignoring my text and email about asking to schedule a meeting to get set up. Dumb move on his part, since a huge part of his job is recruiting.

After giving it a few days, I thought to myself maybe he is away on vacation or out of town for some reason. So, I called the office (using the good old fashioned *67 to block my number from coming up on the office ID) to ask if he was still the manager of that office; “yes he is.” Alright. I asked if he was away on vacation or for business. The receptionist got a little snotty at this point (not a good first impression if I was new to this industry and calling for the first time)… “I don’t know. I just answer the phone. Can I give him a message or send you to his voicemail?” Uhh… REALLY?! You just answered my question. I said “no, thank you” and hung up the phone.

This is upsetting for a number of reasons:

• This company isn’t my first choice, but the company that I worked with in New Jersey is a company that you have to pay a monthly fee to work with them as an Independent Consultant.
• I do NOT want to work with a company whose manager ignores communications from a prospective new recruit.
• This sort of backs up the “lack of support from [this] manager” as I was warned by someone who already works in his office.
• I’m a bit of a superstitious person and cannot help but wonder if this is an omen or sign that I should find a regular paying job instead of continuing my commission based career…
• Since this was my SECOND choice in company to work with, I have no idea what other company I should even look at for possibilities of joining.

Unprofessional people in this industry (and any industry for that matter) just plain SUCK! My anxiety is not only in overdrive, but constant today. I’ve already taken my daily dose of Klonopin. I wish I had some weed to smoke. I just need to unwind. I need a mind full of cloudiness right now. I’m so sick and tired of always getting the shit end of sticks.

I want to disappear.