Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016 - 11:58 p.m.

Then, believe it or not, it got worse: Q had a meltdown as we were about to sit down to supper finally, hitting J and I and screaming and yelling about everything. I tried my best to remove her and calm her down but she would have none of it. I feel like I should have some advantage in this since I think I understand what is going on with her. But I don't, really. She is also, like, really big now and hard to control. You can't just pick her up and move her so easily.

So after I tried to calm her down in her room with only limited success, I stayed in there and hid because I couldn't deal with coming out and seeing the grandparents emoting all over it. She was still upset. Then my mom starts up with her "young lady, you should be ASHAMED of yourself" and J shut her down splendidly. At which she did her usual: stormed out in a huff of butthurt, stopping to tell us that Q is going to turn out just like my cousin Jenny.

My cousin Jenny has multiple mental health diagnoses, and a penchant for dramatic hissy fits that everyone in good old Protestant western PA blames on her, I guess.. Well, bad parenting doesn't get you multiple mental health diagnoses. And you certainly can't shame someone out of a meltdown. How well did that strategy work out for my mom? Let's not go over it too closely. Child 1: dead of alcoholism. Child 2: ??? Angry, at the very least.

After that Q calmed down ok and the dinner went all right, but I'm kinda feeling sad about it all still. And pissed that my mother can't act like a grown up. She's almost 87 and I don't want to be unkind, but fuck a duck.

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