My Mother, My Dictator: My Life

My mother began to get desperate as things were spiraling out of her control.  I had given up going to college to stay home and take care of my mother once she had thrown my father out of the house.  My sister had not even made it six months at college before my mother convinced her that she needed to quit and come home to take care of her.  She repeatedly told us she was to sick to work, even though when she did actually go to a doctor she wasn't diagnosed with anything that I know of.  She had a huge distrust of doctors and had taken to diagnosing her own symptoms.

As I spent two summers working fourteen hour days, only to return home and be told to go to bed because I had to get up for work again in the morning.  I wanted to sit for an hour and just watch some TV or something.  A small amount of time for myself. 

Since I can remember she was always pushing me to take medicines I didn't want to take.  Mostly Tylenol when I was sick with a fever or flu.  (I taken it so much I have built up a tolerance to it.  I need to take twice the amount my husband (6'4" over 300 lbs) needs.) 

My parents had a friend who was a pharmacist.  A pharmacist that had no problem giving them prescription drugs they did not have prescriptions for.  He would just list our old family doctor on the label.  I should have turned him in.

My mother had gotten a prescription from the pharmacist friend.  The bottle said Trazadone.  She told me it was to help me get to sleep.  I fought with her that I didn't want to take it.  I ended up caving in and taking one anyway.  Thank goodness it was only one. 

I laid down to try to sleep.  As it took effect my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest.  It was scary.  I got up to tell my mother about this.  I could barely stand.  I stood there in the hallway looking at her telling her how I physically felt.  She continued to watch TV and a replied,"Oh, it did that to me too." 

Many years later, when I was happily married and out of her reach, I looked back on this incident.  I looked up Trazadone, it was listed as an anti-depressant.  What does that have to do with sleep?  I think my mother tried to kill me.

My mother always used to say,"You can't trust anyone."  I realize now what she really was saying was,"You can't trust me."

Dictators will do anything and everything they can to have and maintain control.  There is nothing they won't do.  And if they sense that they are losing their power they will take desperate measures.  For them there is no God but themselves.