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question could have been made a little bit clear
Honestly Yours
I Wish I Could Talk To My Mother Like A Normal Person
Only my sister knows what I’m really talking about.
Shannon Ashley
Shannon Ashley
Oct 5, 2019 · 6 min read
Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash
Mental illness takes a toll on the parent-child relationship, particularly when the parent behaves like a child. Or expects their own child to take years of abuse.
“Stop yelling at me!”
My mother cries out, frazzled, and puts her hands over her ears. With my 5-year-old sleeping just 2 feet away from me, it’s safe to say I haven’t raised my voice at all.
It doesn’t matter. My mom believes I am screaming and attacking her. There is no way to get out of this argument without my mother believing I have deeply disrespected her.
Unfortunately, this sort of scene has been common. Living with my mother was a lot like walking on eggshells, and ironically that’s exactly what she would say about living with me.
A bad beginning
I come from a lineage of mental illness and larger than life disorders like manic depression and munchausen syndrome. My sister and I suspect our mother is also walking around with schizophrenia. Or something equally paranoid and serious.
Both our mother and grandmother spent their lives seeking attention for strange maladies. Before she died at age 82, our grandma spent decades living in unexplained and questionable blindness and paralysis.
Nobody could answer why she was blind. Or in a wheelchair. And toward the end of her life when her health truly did begin to deteriorate, new physicians began to expose her lies and bring up munchausen as the proper diagnosis.
Living in the end times
For as long as I can remember, my mother has also been talking about living in the end times. As a child, I didn’t even think I’d see my 30th birthday because my mom was so convincing about her beliefs.
And now that my mother is in her 60s, I can’t help but see her becoming more and more like Grandma. Not only that, but I can see where I’ve been duped my whole life.
For whatever reason, my mother needs to see herself as a victim. And needs the existence of a bully who she can claim unrelentlessly attacks her.
With so few humans left in her world, that bully has to be me.
We can’t talk about it
Sure, he’s only in her 60s, but as my mother grows older, it doesn’t matter what the issue is. If it is even slightly uncomfortable for her, bringing it up is an act of war.
The inciting incident could be small. Like my daughter falling asleep on the couch, and my mother falling asleep in a chair. I could be working in the living room when I instinctively say, “Oh!”
My daughter rolls over too close to too the edge of the couch, so I set down my tablet to move her.
It would be fine, except my that mom wakes up with a start and begins to panic.
“Mom, it’s fine. I’ll move her.”
But it's too late. My mother, already in crisis mode, starts fussing and crying about how she cannot move my kid.
I’m not sure how many times I have to tell my mom, it’s fine and not to worry. But I suspect it's at least 5 times. Nothing I say seems to register, not really, but my mom becomes exponentially frustrated as if I am barking out orders.
“Stop yelling at me!”