Fever Dream – Ghosts from My Past and Watching Bandersnatch

I have a weird quirk where sometimes the more popular something is, the more I resist jumping on the bandwagon. Some latent habit left over from my rebellious youth ? A remnant of anti-establishment feelings that never really disappeared, perhaps?

Regardless, it kept me from watching Bandersnatch on Netflix right away as soon as I saw it blowing up on social media. Stranger still was the reason why I ended up watching it this day. It is approaching the birthday of the son who died. Later this year will be the two year anniversary of his passing. Why then did I have a dream where he came home?

I spent the last two days battling some bug. Don’t know what it was. Wasn’t the cold that got my youngest son, but it was something that fucked me up real good and kept me in bed (or the bathroom) for two days. The first day I was sick, I didn’t realize it due to focusing my concern and energy on getting my son over the cold. He couldn’t afford to miss too much school, but since he also has a part time job, it was just as important that he get better so he can do both.

My mother called me two days ago and asked me if I was coming to get her. I need to explain this important detail: my mother does not drive. In all my life, I have never seen her behind the wheel of a car. I don’t know if she can drive. She happens to also think that it was my day off work. On my days off she calls me to give her rides to do shopping or whatever errands my brother won’t take her to do himself.

Apparently I had forgotten that I had agreed to let her “help me” clean the bathrooms in my house because a) they needed to be cleaned, but more important to her b) they needed to be cleaned before my ex decides to come to town to visit. OMG

Two weeks ago I told my mother (for reasons unknown to me – haven’t I learned my lesson yet?) that my ex had asked if he could come visit the kids right after the new year. I was like whatever, sure.

I brought it up I think because I usually lack for things to mention to her since I don’t want to involve her in my life, but also because I was mildly concerned that he was having personal issues in his life and was using this visit as a way to run away from his problems. I don’t know why I did it but I do know he is one of her favorite subjects.

Talking about the ex can deflect the attention from what is happening in my life.

I got the feeling that the ex isn’t doing so hot. He certainly didn’t divulge information to me easily when we were married, so imagine my surprise when he was forthcoming about his meds (the fact that he is on them) when we were texting to coordinate xmas presents for the kids. Which led me to wonder if he was still having a hard time dealing with the memory of the son who died?

When he asked if he could come to see the kids early in the year, which is different than his previous visits of either late spring or early fall, I agreed. I would like to believe that he regrets not having spent more time with all the children, especially the son who died, when they were younger.

I would have thought that this regret would have caused him to spend more time with them period, but I also added distance by moving to Texas. However, when he does manage to make it out here to see them, I encourage it and help him out as much as I can. Like letting him stay at my house instead of making him get a hotel.

This may have been one of the reasons I brought the ex up to my mother.

Sadly, my mother is a confusing and manipulative person. She is very much a narcissist parent and every interaction with her is like walking through a field of landmines.

For example, when I told her that I was going to get a divorce, she was not supportive, and she cried claiming that I was doing this to her. (A typical reaction.) Later, once she saw the inevitability of my actions, and that I was NOT going to change my mind, she acted supportive, but only if it was convenient for her.

She dealt with my change in status like an angry child with a napkin, and she is weirdly obsessed with me getting back together with him. EVEN though he has remarried, she is still convinced this could happen. I have learned to shield my life from her, nothing is just conversation. Everything turns into a gateway to wedge herself into my life and manipulate it for her satisfaction.

I was not surprised that when I mentioned he might visit sooner than later, she began to obsess about getting my house ready for his visit. Sure, I go into a frenzy of cleaning and tidying up before anyone visits, and I might expend 20% more effort before he shows up – but because I have hangups and issues from the marriage. NOT because I want to get back together with him. I want to be relaxed during his visit, instead of a manic mess because I am freaking out trying to make things perfect like I did when we were married.

Her offer of help is a double edged sword. Acceptance simultaneously admits to her that I am incapable of doing it on my own like her offer suggests, and proof that she needs to manage my household because the appearance of it is directly correlated with his perception of me. AND THAT is what really matters to her. I stupidly had agreed to her offer because I hate cleaning bathrooms.

When she asked me for a ride it was to get the supplies to do said cleaning. Sure, mom. I will take you to buy these industrial strength supplies for this project. I did not realize that meant that she wanted to do the cleaning immediately after. What? I felt like crap! I didn’t want to clean. I barely wanted to move.

I was so out of sorts, even she noticed that I was not my usual self, and that’s saying a bunch since her perception is usually skewed by what she wants to see. Apparently I am usually more “hyper” on these outings, and that day I was subdued. All I wanted to do was sleep. 

I convinced her to wait until the next day. The next day I woke up no better than day prior. In fact, I was exhausted with no reason. Everything hurt and I had no appetite or will to move. I sent her a text telling her I was sick and that we would have to postpone. She said fine, but I could sense her disappointment between the lines of her instructions for how to get better. And I fell back to sleep. Only to then have a bizarre dream that I can’t figure out the meaning of.

I dreamed of the son who died, and I am not sure if I knew he was dead in my dream, but I knew he didn’t live with me.

In this dream he had come for a visit at some point in the near future. It was my house here,  but it had his bedroom from our house in Virginia. In my dream, I showed him that his bed was still made and as he went to lay down, I told him I had another blanket for him (there is a cold front moving into Texas this weekend dropping temperatures). He followed me to my room to get it (my room which looks just like the room I have now) and I got the blanket that I had just laundered and folded. As I handed the blanket to him I said, “Welcome home”. At which point I woke up.

I was shaken by the memory, too tired to get up, too sleepy to read. I could feel the ghosts of the past starting to creep in. Memories of the son who died and the ex, wondering if he was still coming to visit and when the ex would let me know.

The pressure to clean my house before my mother thought I had the day off again so I could decline her offer of help without needing an excuse. So I turned on the television and decided this was as good a time as any to watch on Netflix. I needed something to take my mind off thoughts of the past. Maybe I’d fall back to sleep as I watched the movie.

Warning: there are spoilers ahead. I’m going to mention parts of the movie that if you plan to see it and don’t like plot points revealed in advance, you may want to stop reading now.

If you don’t care, plunge ahead…

As the movie started, it dawned on me that mentions of making choices I had read about were not a metaphor, but quite literally because it was interactive. So much for mindless television.

So I watched, and made choices.

I don’t know how many endings there are, and you can’t rewind before a choice is made, leastwise not on my FireTV stick, so I committed myself to paying attention. The only endings I encountered that I found acceptable were the one where he chops up the father, he is able to finish his game and it gets a perfect score.

Even though he gets arrested and his game is destroyed, I found it satisfying because Stefan finally gets his peace. His father is no longer the thorn in his side, he can enact the child rage he felt because his father truly was the catalyst to his mother dying which seems to be the fucked up thing that Stefan struggles with since his dad would prefer to keep him medicated. I didn’t care much for the P.A.C.S. theory.

It is interesting that in the wake this week of from about Toxic Masculinity, that the underlying reason Stefan’s father took away his rabbit was because the dad felt it was more important his in-laws not perceive the dad’s masculinity as weak because he let his son have a stuffed rabbit toy. So the dad chooses to “act” by getting rid of the rabbit.

The selfish action which prompts Stefan to not to get on the train with his mother, leaving him behind with the dad to resent him till the end of days. I know Bandersnatch was not written, acted or produced in relation to the ad, but is it not ironic that masculinity – and it’s perception – can be so poisonous not only in reality but in the fictional worlds we watch in movies? Sure seems that way to me.

I found that ending to be very cathartic. My mother has manipulated my life up to the point where I awoke to the reality of her machinations and liberated myself. But it was way late and so much bad shit had happened by then that I am still not truly free. Hence her moving to Texas and her wanting to live nearer to me still. Death really is only the beginning.

Then the final ending which finally terminated the movie for me – I got Stefan his rabbit back and I made him get on the train with the mother. Choosing to get on a train he knew would derail. What other option is there? His father doesn’t believe him and is patronizing. The therapist is in cahoots with the father and doesn’t really believe what Stefan tells her, she only “humors” him, then ups his meds.

He wants to complete the game, but the owner is just looking out for himself and doesn’t really care that Stefan cares about his finished product, not the commercial aspect of it. Stefan really had no life in his life.

So I sent him home, to be with his mother, because she would have given a shit about him. And I wasn’t sad that he passed in reality. He didn’t need them, his father, or his therapist. Not even the game. Because the game was really ahead of its time anyway. 1984 did not need him.

At which point I realized that my life is a fucking depressing shithole.

I dream about words to a dead son that I never got a chance to say in real life. I stress about ways to avoid being manipulated by my mother over something that should not be rife with hidden meaning: cleaning a bathroom.

I struggle to reconcile the fact that I have terrible relationships and they are as unhealthy as whatever bacteria or virus my white blood cells are attempting to vanquish inside me. I try to not let this all spiral into a maelstrom of dark thoughts that will drive me back into my bed for other reasons.

Sure, I really don’t have anything else to do as I circle the drain of unemployment. But this too shall pass and eventually I will be expected to function like other adults interacting in the real world.

What are my choices?