I haven't seen my mother for about a half a year now. I texted her on Mothers' Day, and picked up when she called me back. I shouldn't have. Or maybe it was the right thing to do, the conversation reminded me of what a screwed up place I grew up in.

I told her about the dental emergency I had earlier in the spring and the work I've had done on my teeth since, and how I'm aware I've had certain bite problems since I was small, and that she told my doctors not to treat them. She replied to me that she didn't want me to have braces (or corrective surgery to my feet, or physiotherapy after my car accident, or any other out of the ordinary medical aid I'd have needed) when I was small, because doctor and dentist appointments made me cry. She said that instead she "made sure my mental development was good".

Within a few minutes she also told me that a few years ago she healed a cancer from her eye by eating tomatoes - she'd first thought that Jesus did it and converted back to Christianity for the umpteenth time, but no, it was actually tomatoes, and now her religion's gone once again, or something (hell if I know, she may be expecting a UFO to come get her right now).

That, and that when I have even one kid of my own, I will understand how terrible it is and stop judging her for not getting medical help for the beautiful baby I was.

I could have visited her that day or the day after, I was in the area where she lives.

I didn't go.

For many years I felt deep, nagging guilt that I wasn't taking care of her enough. I knew that it was holding me back from being as joyful as I could be, but I didn't know how to stop it. I even went as far as doing countless New Age rituals to get rid of it. Funny that deconverting has actually removed the weight of her from me, too. I didn't expect that to happen, but it has. Now I understand that she's treating me like I'm worthless not because it's a test from God/the Universe to see how forgiving and loving and pure I really I am, or to point out my weak, incomplete spots that I need to surrender to God. She treats me like I'm worthless because of her own reasons, many of which are rooted in her own illness that she's refused to treat, and they're not my fault.

I'm not responsible for her loneliness, she is.

The irony is that when I was a child, she claimed to hate everyone who "wanted to find fault in me", but we'd sit down in the bathroom and count the deformities and other physical issues I had, over and over again, and she'd blame my father for having bad genes that he passed on to me.

Then for some other things I've been thinking of.

I thought of the cost of happiness. Do I want to be happy? How much am I ready to give up on for the sake of being "happy"? And what does that even mean? Is happiness a some kind of blissful feeling, smiling inside constantly, or is it knowing that you can accept everything that's going on in your life?

Yes, I do miss the bliss of religious experiences, and even though I now know my head created them, it seems that it does require a certain degree of.... honesty? Openness? Trust? What? Anyhow, a quality that I no longer have access to, as I can't self-suggest bliss over myself anymore. I don't dare to try, actually, because I'm honestly afraid of going crazy. Becoming my mother is the last thing I want from my life.

Yet I miss the "otherworldly" feeling of being connected to power, of thinking I'm "the one" after all and the crap in my life has had a bigger meaning and there'll be a some kind of next life that'll balance out this one. But there probably won't be a next life, and I'm thirty and this is 1/3 or more of my life gone by doing what? Believing shit that's not real, being ill and sore when I could have been helped, trying to recover from traumatic stuff in many wrong ways (and a couple right ways too, I gave therapy a try many years ago already, but I was unable to be honest), screwing myself up further, wasting the only life I can know for sure I have.

I probably could make myself happy by absorbing myself in religion again, but I could end up so detached from the world that I'd ruin my own life and possibly some other people's too (at least I don't have kids). Coming down with a psychotic disorder is a huge, real fear for me and I'm rather a dull person just accepting my life than a blissful person for dangerous reasons that could blow up in my hands the way they already have.

I'm seeing my psychiatrist tomorrow, finally. I really have to choose carefully what I say during the hour I see him. There's so much I want to talk about. Well, I think that if he offers me new kind of meds (it's been mentioned before), I'll give them a try.