The Realization: As I brushing my teeth today, I was thinking about my mom and what's going on recently (which I will get to soon), and remembering what she used to say when she'd yell at me. Her tantrums always had a common theme. While yelling at me for whatever I "did" (more accurately, didn't do) to piss her off, she would usually say at some point: "You treat me like shit, you can't be bothered to do anything around the house, and I never even ask for much around here."

Now, years ago I figured out how much bullshit that was, because I've never gone out of my way to purposely be rude to her, but she'd still say I treated her like shit. Now I understand if I'm being mean by accident, we all do that sometimes. We're human. They key is that we apologize for it. I've been there. But I don't think I've ever been anything but nice to her and she would still act like I was horrible to her while also screaming at me. She would say I treat her like shit while treating me like shit. So I saw through that one pretty easily.

But today, it dawned on me that even if she hasn't yelled at me for a year, she's actually doing all the things she would accuse me of doing. Sure, she doesn't ask me for anything, but I try to avoid asking her for anything too. I don't ask her if she can drive me anywhere (I haven't learned yet, but I want to take care of that), I don't ask her if she can go pick me up any food (fast or otherwise), I don't ask her to cook for me...anything. Unless I really need to or I think there'a a chance she'll say yes. Why is this? Because in the past I would ask her to pick up McDonald's or something or make something for me and her answer was often along the lines of "I don't feel like cooking right now" or "I've had a long day at work and don't want to go anywhere else, walk to McDonald's and get it yourself" or "I can't afford McDonald's right now." So over the years I just gradually stopped asking her for anything like that and made do with whatever junk food I could scrounge up in the house.

But the one I'm most stunned by is "you never do anything around the house." Because neither does she. In my defense, the only reason I don't help around the house much is because she never needed help when I asked her if she did. And since I don't know what needs doing and don't usually want to do important things like trying to take care of a house we live in on my own in case I mess it up, I just stay out of the way. If she told me "can you help me with this" or "I need ___ done" I would gladly help, but because that never happens, I don't take the chance. Sure, she cooks for herself and our housemate (she'd probably cook for me too if I asked for it), and tries and fails to keep the house clean, but she never does anything in the sense of she never does anything I ask her to or she says she's going to do. This one will come up in recent events.

On to the trust issues! Let me illustrate this with a small timeline. I'm going to try to format this nicely, hopefully it works. (Instant edit: it didn't, so I'm going to separate them with more lines to try to make it easier on the eyes.)

Some point in the past within the last year.
Me: "Don't forget, you said you'd pick up Dr. Pepper on you way home on Friday." I say this almost every day that week.
Me, on Friday: [looks for Dr. Pepper, there is none to be found.] :/

Last summer. (Context: Our house doesn't have central air, only heat, and as a result it gets really hot in the summer. The upstairs especially so, being higher up. It seriously gets awful in my room, and sometimes everything I try can't help it.)
My mom: "I'm gonna get you an AC unit for your room."
Me, a week later: "When? Is it on the way?"
Her: "They're on back order and we won't have them for two weeks."
Me, two weeks later: "Where are they?"
Her: [some unsatisfactory answer that was either something like "They don't have them" or just "we're not getting/can't afford them" or whatever. Either way, no AC was given to me and I had to try to keep my room cool with small fans, which didn't work very well.]

Present day, two weeks ago.
Her: "Can I use that 3DS charger you're borrowing from me?" (Context: my own charger died a year ago and I never got around to having her order a new one, so when I needed a charge I borrowed hers.)
Me: "Sure." [gives it to her.] "Actually, I don't have one of my own, so can we order a new, longer one?" (Hers is much too short for me.)
Her: "Yes, we'll do it soon."
A day or two later, when I'm ordering some stuff for a cosplay. I ask her to order two items off Amazon for me because she has her own account (I don't have one) and she has Prime. I text her links to the two items through my phone so she can order them while I'm on my computer upstairs ordering from Etsy and other non-Amazon places.
Her, texting: "Don't forget to order a new DS charger."
Me: [immediately pulls up an Amazon link to a 3DS charger and sends it to her]
Her: "Damn it. I just ordered the costume stuff and put my iPad away. I'm tired and my head hurts. I'll order the charger tomorrow."
The next day.
Me: "Did you order the new charger?"
Her: "Not yet, I'll do it tomorrow."
Two days later.
Me: "Did you order the new charger yet?"
Her: "No, not yet."
I get fed up with her delaying because as you guys can see, she has a track record of never fucking doing anything I ask her to or that she tells me she's going to do, so I try to take matters into my own hands. We go to the mall on Saturday (the day before Mother's Day) and I try to find a new charger at the GameStop there. No luck, cashier told me it was kind of short when I asked about length. So then I ask my boyfriend if we can go to the other GameStop near our movie theater since we were going to see a movie that Sunday. He agrees, but tells me I'm better off ordering online (which I gave up on after my mom didn't do it plus a lot of the Amazon listings looked inconsistent and potentially shady/easily broken). I realize maybe the Walmart within walking distance of me carries the charger I need and consider going, but also wonder if maybe I should just order from Amazon since he also told me the official Nintendo charger is only sold online.

After all that, he ends up just ordering it for me himself off Amazon. My mom never did it despite me reminding her after she told me she would do it. She always does this and it irritates the shit out of me. Why is it important now? Well...

Her, a week ago: "You want an AC unit for your room?"
Me: "Yes, it's going to get extremely hot in there without one."
Me, a few days ago: "When are you going to get it?"
Her: "I have to look at them first."
Me, yesterday: [a sweaty mess because it was 80 degrees outside, making my room even hotter. Realize that I need to do something about this AC unit quickly because I don't want to spend my whole summer suffering and feeling like I'm going to either drown in sweat or die of heatstroke.]

I worked myself up into thorough annoyance yesterday, because I figure that if this gets done at all and she does get me an AC unit, it won't happen until June or July. Mostly I was just angry because after the charger thing I felt like I wanted to trust her with this AC thing but probably shouldn't because it's probably never going to get done.

However, happy little update that just happened as I was typing this: I texted her asking about progress on it, and she apologized and told me that if I want to go to the store with Boyfriend and pick one up myself, I have her permission to use my credit card. She just reminded me to take measurements of my window first. So it looks like I may have to handle this one myself (as I usually do with everything else that I have the ability to), but at least I won't be driven mad by her never doing it when I'm expecting her to. At least she's trying to help me handle it. At least she's giving me the means to not only handle it myself, but also handle it more quickly. If Boyfriend and I go do it, this means I'll probably have it within a matter of days because we can probably do it next time he comes over.

So this time it worked out and/or I may have gotten lucky, which is nice. But seriously, she does this all the time and I hate it. I'm pretty sure I tend to accidentally extend this to other people in the form of never expecting them to do what they tell me they'll do even when I have no reason to doubt them. And I know for sure that her doing this shit to me is probably a big part of the reason why my words to live by are "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself."