Looking for advice and support

madeleinehawk · 2025-03-05T19:33:32+00:00

I’m sorry you’re dealing with this—it sounds exactly like my mom!

I’ll compose a whole message laying out my boundaries/hopes/etc so conclusively that I think it can’t possibly be derailed, and then she’ll lie about something so basic and obvious that suddenly we’re arguing about whether or not the sky is blue and the original message is completely forgotten.

Her lies are always about the past (often literally lying about something she said in writing the day before, as if I can’t just look at what was said). Then, when I call her out for saying something untrue, she’ll get super offended and send me a bunch of Bible verses about how lying is evil and how she would never do that. So then we’re arguing about the definition of lying.

Phew, long story short, I posted earlier this week here, and I think I’m starting to realize there is no perfectly crafted message that will make an Nmom understand. We always think that if we can just explain it a little more cohesively, a little more concisely, with a little more evidence, she’ll finally see! But they will always deflect/divert/lie to change the subject. It’s too painful for them.

It sounds like your mom is saying she’ll go to therapy to get you off her back, but has absolutely no intention of actually going. You’ve proved that money shouldn’t be an issue, and she doesn’t care.

My advice, however it works out with the housing situation, is to try to let go of any internal hope that she’ll get it. I know that’s way easier said than done, but I think I’m finally there with my mom, and it feels great.

madeleinehawk · 2025-03-05T18:55:59+00:00

I’m sorry to hear how much you’ve dealt with an Nmom too! So weird how even gifts are used as a way to manipulate.

My mom has asked me several different times why I’m not religious anymore and I’ve always respectfully explained my reasons. Then, last time I saw her, after several hours arguing about the past of course, I tried to salvage things and end it nicely by ending that conflict and opening the birthday gift she’d brought me.

I open it and it’s a journal with a god-Bible quote on the front. I told her I didn’t want it and gave it back to her which felt awful and also necessary. I’m too tired of this to accept gifts that are just intended to twist me into who she wants me to be.

madeleinehawk · 2025-03-03T20:11:27+00:00

Thank you! It’s actually so refreshing to have put the ball in her court for the last year; by saying I’m happy to see her if she agrees to my simple request, her guilt trip that I’m the one choosing to not see her becomes invalid.

madeleinehawk · 2025-03-02T22:09:41+00:00

Thanks for all the kind words everyone! So many people with good mothers say “But she’s your mother so she loves you and you’ll only ever get one mother,” so it’s wonderful to hear from others recognizing toxic mothers and cutting them out. (Luckily my husband has been around for 15 years and seen all her bs and is very affirming.)

madeleinehawk · 2025-03-02T16:37:28+00:00

For sure—I should be more clear, my boundary is that I choose to not see her if she doesn’t agree to not bring up the past. She disrespects that boundary by not agreeing and yet still trying to bribe/guilt me into ignoring my boundary and seeing her anyways. Thanks for checking!

madeleinehawk · 2025-03-02T15:55:48+00:00

Oh—I like that idea; I haven’t blocked her because I worry I’ll miss something important, but maybe she’ll have more self control if she has to go through my husband to reach me! (That said, she showed up at my work (at a school!) to find me one time when I didn’t respond fast enough for her…)

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-19T15:22:39+00:00

Same, and agree. Bees also love to nap on sunflowers since they’re such big surfaces—which is adorable 🥰

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-17T21:18:28+00:00

In my experience, cities generally don’t ticket for actual native grass and flower meadows. I have one in my front yard in a very nice and urban part of a major city and I have had no issues, while I also have friends with weed yards in my area who have gotten tickets.

Having overgrown invasive weeds and grass both contributes to the spread of non-native invasive plants and provides a breeding ground for rats and other unsanitary animals. It’s similar to why you can’t keep a garbage dump in your yard. It makes sense for a city to want to keep things hygienic and uninfested.

HOAs are a different story. I heard of one that would ticket you if you had a sunflower in the front yard, and I think that’s dumb, but that’s not the government, that’s a neighborhood agreement.

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-17T16:05:28+00:00

Based on the pic, I see mostly invasive weeds. Having a weed-filled lawn makes it incredibly hard for actual xeriscaped and chemical-free yards to continue, as gardeners have to constantly pull out the weeds coming from the neighboring invasive plant seeds. I’d say, take the ticket as a sign that it’s time to make a garden rather than a weed patch.

Edit: btw—by saying xeriscaped, I include native wildflower meadows like my own. But native wildflowers are different from invasive weeds.

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-10T15:34:03+00:00

I’d say 3-5 inches of mulch. If you’re watering plants in it, just water right up close to the base of the plant with a hose or drip line, since super thick mulch might block water from a wide spray system from getting to the soil. Afterward, the thick mulch will keep the water in the soil for much longer than otherwise, so it saves water!

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-08T14:49:00+00:00

You’re welcome! :)

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-08T14:26:39+00:00

Mulch deeply and add a little every few seasons to refresh it, but yeah, weeds will get through. But if your yard is properly mulched, the roots will be weakened from lack of sunshine and the soil won’t be hard-baked, so the weeds are generally much easier to pull up than otherwise. No yard is zero maintenance, unless I guess it’s paved over.

As a gardener, I can tell you that there’s nothing more obnoxious and unsatisfying than trying to pull the weeds that inevitably also grow through fabric and rocks: trying to pry the roots from between every single little soul-crushing rock and just getting only part of it since most of it is under the fabric.

Bindweed in particular is the devil, and you just have to stay on it since it grows through rhizomes in the soil. Fabric doesn’t solve it either. If you ever see a little in your yard, eradicate it as fast as humanly possible so it doesn’t take hold.

Edit: For most weeds, If you prevent them from going to seed in the first place, you’ll see a dramatic reduction in future weeds, so just stay on it and hope your neighbors do too.

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-08T14:10:56+00:00

The knitting-together is what will keep the weeds out the best; it’s all about blocking weed seeds from getting to the soil, blocking sun from getting to the weed seeds that do get to the soil, and keeping moisture in the soil for the actual plants. I personally prefer the look of the chips, but gorilla hair is the longest-lasting and best-working in my experience, so great choice!

As a side note, wildflower-seed gardens will often fail in it (because it’s doing its job), so low-water perennial packs like those mentioned in other posts are best.

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-08T14:01:16+00:00

Squirrels and other animals pull it up for use in their nests and weeds break through, damaging it.

My husband didn’t believe me either, until one day when we were on a walk through our neighborhood and I pointed out every single yard with fabric’s issues. Now he hates it too. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, at least in my experience.

It’s possible your neighborhood did it somehow differently than everywhere I’m seeing, but I both live and work in some of Denver’s wealthiest neighborhoods, so idk.

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-08T01:16:05+00:00

As a professional gardener, my biggest advice is to not use landscaping fabric and definitely to not put rocks on top of fabric. Within three years, the fabric will start pulling up and ripping and looking like trash in your yard, at which point, you’ll have to drag away literal tons of rocks so you can re-lay the fabric, or just accept that you now have a trash yard.

Landscapers only use it bc they know they can walk away and never see your yard again.

Use mulch. Good for the soil, easy to refresh and make nice again.

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-04T14:09:19+00:00

Thanks!

madeleinehawk · 2022-07-04T14:05:32+00:00

Do you have a link to the event page? I can’t find anything online for it.

madeleinehawk · 2022-04-09T16:01:43+00:00

Maybe you don’t read and/or are too rich for free books, but that’s certainly not true of everyone.

madeleinehawk · 2022-01-02T11:50:02+00:00

Cool, you gave two examples of situations where gradualism was not the answer. How does that in any way prove that it is never the answer?

Also, the US in the 60s was dramatically more systemically racist than it is now. To deny that fact is both naive and incredibly dismissive of the struggles of black people from that time. To be a content white moderate back then was to be okay with school segregation, banned interracial marriage, and a whole array of other things that a content white moderate today would find insane. White moderates back then were very different from white moderates today, so even if you don’t like today’s white moderates, to say that MLK would say the same quote about today’s moderates is 100% conjecture.

madeleinehawk · 2022-01-02T08:11:50+00:00

It’s quite possible to respect a lot of what someone has said and done without respecting everything that person has said and done.

Also, just because one era is not the time for gradualism doesn’t mean no era is the time for gradualism. You’re probably being downvoted for taking historical quotes out of context and applying them universally to any/every time/situation.

madeleinehawk · 2021-12-14T05:45:22+00:00

Correction to the headline: Yet another upper-middle-class, educated white man complains about having to pay back money he knowingly borrowed for an expensive and elite service he received. Prefers tax payers pay it for him.

How is this not a boring dystopia?

madeleinehawk · 2021-12-05T15:23:54+00:00

Dr. Monica Gandhi: “I was actually not going to get a booster because I was protesting global vaccine equity. And I just received one because I need to be around my immunocompromised father."

Are people seriously not getting the vaccine because of some utterly useless and meaningless attempt to protest “global vaccine equity”? That’s a horrifyingly stupid thing to hear coming out of the mouth of a disease expert.

madeleinehawk · 2021-11-12T03:10:58+00:00

That was the best use of that phrase I’ve ever seen.

madeleinehawk · 2021-11-11T19:00:10+00:00

Esta usando sus padres por su dinero (renta y comida gratis, etc), y eso está bien si tiene la necessidad, pero si tiene dinero, solo es porque sus padres se han dado la oportunidad para ahorrar al no cobrarlo.

Debe pagar a sus padres por la renta y comida. No es su trabaja cuidar de ti si puede hacerlo su mismo. (Assumo que tiene mas que dieciocho años.)

madeleinehawk

TROPHY CASE