Godammit, I’m Mad!

If you had a crazy mother, you will spend your whole life trying to transcend it. If you are a crazy mother, no degree of remorse will ease your heavy heart.

My mom was crazy. Even into her forties, my sister was ashamed to let anyone find out. Whenever I meet someone with a crazy mom, I feel an instant kinship, even if their childhood experience was nothing like mine. The burden of a crazy mom sets you apart. You missed out on something that you can barely imagine. But you struggle to forgive her.

I know people who were locked in closets, hit, threatened, screamed at, abandoned, and I know a woman whose mom killed herself on Mother’s Day, knowing her three daughters would find her with a plastic bag over her head.

If your mom was crazy, none of this will shock you. I’m more shocked when an adult friend tells me about a nice day she just had, shopping with her mom. It seems almost otherworldly. How do you get a normal mom, a mom who isn’t either enraged or crying?!?

While PAP Smear takes a break, I’m embarking on a Crazy Mothers Club. We might have a logo, but probably not. Maybe just a secret handshake.

Was (or is) your mom crazy? Here is a place you can talk about it.  Rant, complain, whine, and compare notes. Are you a crazy mom? You can confess, seek counsel, or just bond with other crazy moms. No one gets to be mean to anybody else, i.e., bad vibes will not be tolerated.

Since I fit both categories, I get to be CEO. Annemarie will do the PR and heavy lifting. All other positions are open.

A reader calling herself Kim asks: “Don’t you people have anything better to do than judge other people? I can’t believe how rude you people are!!”

Kim, let me answer you this way: NO, WE DON’T!

Here at Godammit.com, we judge people. We figure that the good lord gave us the ability to make judgements, so why not exercise it? Like the great Gustave Flaubert, we are “severe mais juste.” Strict but fair.

In PAP Smear news, Mrs. P was unable to define “preconditions” and agreed to reveal her medical records IF she does in fact reveal them. Good to know!

In a new interview with People Magazine, Mrs. P and Todd “The Bully” Palin are asked “Who’s the better cook?” Mrs. P answers (god bless her heart) “I’m a better cooker.”  Hahahahaha!

Okay, I have been asked to list “11 Things” about me, and I feel it is my privilege to let the people of this great country and any other land mass to know these eleven things:

1. I buy and hoard red lipstick.
2. I have two adopted adult children who I met in cyberspace.
3. I’m afraid of squirrels.
4. I hate my next door neighbor, Alec.
5. There’s no such thing as too much coffee.
6. I’m blind without contact lenses (and with them, at this point)
7. I once got married in Tijuana, using fake ID.
8. I love “Free Bird.”
9. I am relentless in arguments about word usage.
10. No one will tolerate my singing.
11. I’m planning to launch the Crazy Mothers Club (CMC) for the daughters of crazy mothers, after Nov. 4.*

* Sign-ups on November 6

I watched “Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project” on Sundance last night, unprepared for its intensity. It was described as a documentary about a model-turned-photographer who takes pictures of her schizophrenic mother.

Like “Tarnation,” it sucked me in from the very beginning. It only took a few minutes for me to form the opinion that Tierney Gearon is just as crazy as her 64 year old mother, if not more so. She gets her mother to stand outside in the freezing snow,  wildly taking snapshots as the older woman pleads to go back inside.

Watching this documentary is excruciating but endlessly fascinating. It forces one to confront ideas about motherhood, family, mental illness, and exploitation.

Tierney wants to be a good mother, but when her child sobs, her instinct is to photograph him rather than comfort him. She literally uses her new baby as a prop. But she clearly enjoys an intimacy with her children that is really extraordinary. She speaks to them honestly, and joyously takes part in their games, even when it means letting them jump over her as she lays on the grass, hugely pregnant.

Tierney’s mother is a vibrant old lady who lives alone in a ramshackle house and occasionally lashes out at her manipulative daughter. At one point she screams at Tierney, “I gave you everything! All my love and my beauty! But you won’t help me, you bitch!”  It’s a moment of bitter raw emotion, which cuts to the heart of the matter, I think.

Mothers who do their best are still not good enough, and crazy mothers leave their mark. Craziness runs through Tierney Gearon’s family like a virus, but she doesn’t see it. I worry for her three kids, who will undoubtedly struggle with her craziness and their own, in the end. They will probably become parents of crazy children. Nature loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger. In this family, like so many, the trigger is pulled over and over.

The photos that made Tierney a figure of controversy are beautiful and disturbing. It’s hard to see how they could have been considered pornographic. But she does manage to imbue her pictures with an ineffable weirdness that makes a family picnic look like a satanic ritual. She seems like a courageous survivor who would eat her own kids if they got stranded on a desert island.

Watch this movie if you’re up to it. You can buy it on Amazon.com.