The Inescapable Phone Call

“This is the last time that I am calling you and tell you to come home.” The voice of my mother is shrieking at me. “As usual,” I think, “she is on a good one and hysterical." I stay quiet and let her scream. It's easy now because she is thousands of miles away from Los Angeles.

I am sitting in our Hollywood apartment on Franklin Avenue, on the couch. My four Swedish roommates and I stole the couch out of the lobby of a building on Hollywood Boulevard. I am smiling, about the couch and what my mother would scream about knowing that the couch is stolen. I am also smiling because I know that I can hang up that phone at any point. My mother is so far away that she cannot come over screaming outside my place. This horrible sick, insane woman will not be able to abuse me any longer.

The weird part is that I feel guilty thinking about hanging up on my abuser.

Yup, my mom is an abusive, arrogant, hateful spiteful woman. She is damaged.

Now, many years later that I am writing this, I am able to rephrase and say something nicer about the woman who abused an innocent child, like me, for many years. Here is what I tell people today: “My mother suffered, so she became a perpetrator because she was victimized as a child, and she had a psychic break."

I am deep in thought and the screeching voice of my mother, on the other end of the phone line, shakes me out of my daydream state.

“I will call the Interpol and tell them that you ran away. I tell them that you did something bad and they will put you in prison,” her voice is now aggressive and even louder. "As usual she wants her way because she wants to abuse someone, best for her to abuse her children who need a caregiver," I think, and get back to listening to her tirades.

The calmness has disappeared from my face, I am tensing up ready to fight, because all I hear is my mother screaming threats at me from the other line. I feel fear and anxiety wallowing up in the pit of my stomach. Yes, I use the word wallowing because at this point, I am not recovered, just faintly aware.

“I am thousands of miles away and you still think you can ruin my life. You killed Roman with your insanity, now you are going out of your way to get me. Roman jumped down that mountain that was not an accident. You know that. What the fuck is wrong with you? If you do anything remotely as crazy, as lying to the Interpol, about me, and if they are coming to get me, I promise I will kill you when I see you,” I aggressively say. "What the fuck, how did she get me so angry and why am I still listening to her abuse," is all I can think.

The voice on the other line stops. Absolute silence.

Now, I am taking a deep breath. "Why am I still on the phone with her," I think.

I am holding the phone so tight that my knuckles turn white and I remove it from my ear and look at it, then placing it back to my ear. "Why am I still on that phone? Hang it up Cee just hang it up now," my thoughts assertively tell me. However, something in me decides otherwise.

“Hello, MOM, cats got your tongue or what?” I say in sarcastic manner.

“You ungrateful child. You are just like your father,” my mother exclaims, as usual.

“You can already stop it mom. My father has nothing to do with you being crazy. He, matter of fact, has nothing to do with you being a sociopath. He almost drank himself to death being with you. He would not even speak to you without taping you because you lie so much. I love my dad. And look what happened to Roman, but it is never your fault ever. You make no mistakes. Look at my stepfather drinking also, I ran away, my half sibling is chain smoking at an early age. But now you are wonderful. Go look at yourself. You are a monster." At this point I am done with this conversation.

Roman was my half-brother from my mother’s first marriage. After my mother divorced her first husband, her second oldest sister married my mother's first husband.

My brother had a stepmom and auntie all in one person. Seems like a one stop shop, in my family. One flew into the cuckoo’s nest, not over it. I am still holding the phone in my hand.

Now she begins screaming again.

“You ungrateful horrible child. I do not care what happens to you. I do not care if you come back to Austria or not. You can die. You can do whatever. I will not help you at all. You are not welcome at home ever again. You should have been one of my thirteen abortions. I should have never had you," and she hung up the phone. So do I. I put the phone down and walk to the balcony door.

"Her famous thirteen abortion story which she proudly announces any chance she gets. If that's not insane then what is," I am thinking about how often I heard the same words. Too many times, to count.

I take a deep breath and go outside to smoke a cigarette. Our balcony is overlooking the building pool area. Looking at the water is calming. So, I am sitting down, in deep thought and stare at the pool's light blue water glistening in the sun.

A few weeks later my mother calls again. I do not pick up the phone. She keeps calling, daily, hourly and never leaves a message on our answering machine. I am not willing to speak to her and deal with her toxicity.

Another week goes by, and I finally, get my strength together and call her back. She immediately picks up.

“Hey, what’s up,” I say.

“Raimund is flying to LA. You must see him. He is going on vacation, and he wants to see you,” my mother demands in an extremely excited voice.

"No hello how are you," I think.

My face drops because I am still not able to believe how manipulative this woman really is.

Raimund was my first boyfriend whom my mother strongly disliked as long as he and I were a couple. Well, she did because she was not able to control me because Raimund protected me. “Now she is using him to get me back to Austria to ruin my life,” I thought.

I am not nice after the way she began the conversation with a demand. I get straight to the point. No need to ask her how she is. My mom is on some rampage again. Nothing new.

“How can you call me and think that I have my ex-boyfriend come visit me here. I cannot believe you are that insane. He is not welcome here with us. You know very well how he was when we broke up. You never liked him anyway. What happened? You were the one who told me to leave him and find someone better. How dare you,” I loudly exclaim.

My words are followed by silence.

A long silence.

“My mother has nothing to say. That can’t be right,” I think.

My mother’s voice is now calmer, and she said: “Oh well he is flying to Los Angeles no matter what. He already has the ticket. You do not have to hang out with him, but you at least can say hello.” At this point I can feel the manipulation and it feels like a cold shower when the water touches your skin like needles, it's so cold.

“I am doing nothing you say. I will not see him, if I do not want to see him just coz you say I must. You are impossible. You have no control over me any longer. You are miserable and I have no intention of ending up like you,” I feel immediate relief once I speak these words.

Now, I hang up the phone without saying goodbye.

It takes a few more weeks for me to speak to my mother again. I call her. A part of it is curiosity if she knows for sure that my ex will be in LA on vacation. I also know that it is my mother who talked him into taking a vacation in LA.

Years came and went, and we had plenty of disturbing phone conversations. My ex came and left, my mom is still trying to control me from far away, still harsh and unpleasant.

I am still working on learning about boundaries with my mother. However, it's much work to disconnect. After all she is my mom.

I will realize at some later point that it took me way too many years to finally set the last boundary with that woman. Nevertheless, the day came but too many insane, traumatic, spirit damaging phone calls later.

“Hello, I saw your picture on social media. You look way too young for your age, what are you doing, why is your hair long? You got hairlike chives, and your lips are ugly, you look skinny” my mother said.

I am quiet and listen.

“Hello, Hello, Hello, what you got nothing to say ha?” Her voice is loud, erratic, and it feels like she is excavating my nerves. Yet, I feel sad and confused.

I am ready! I take a deep breath, swallow, so many things are going through my mind. I am ready! I pull all strength together and say: “You know what, there is nothing I have to say to you ever again, you are a textbook sociopath, a narcissist and I am no longer willing to listen to you. I can no longer listen. You know what you are doing. If you are not aware, go get help. So long MOM!"

I hang up the phone.

Once again, I go to the balcony to sit down and look at the blue water in the pool. Water makes me calm. On the way to the balcony, I crap my cigarettes and a glass of vodka with ice. I sit down and take a sip. Then I take the phone and call my therapist.

She picks up and I say: "Hello dear, I just did what we discussed in our last session."

I take another swig from the glass and putting it back onto the table and hear the ice in the glass making a clinging sound. "Almost like bells," I think. I light up a cigarette, take a drag, blow the smoke in the air and watch it dissipate.

“Just like that,” I thought. “Just like that, she is gone.”