Roles

A very sad thought I had recently was realizing that I can not seek the advice of my mother in sorting out how best to balance all of the considerations around her care and my own needs. It is doubly sad because I never could seek her advise. It taps into my own feeling from childhood of having to figure everything out myself. My mother has always had very distorted thinking. I have begun to think that essentially she has an anxiety disorder and her response to anxiety is anger, irrational angry outbursts  and bizarre solutions.   She employs a lot of blame and extreme language . Everything has been quite peaceful lately but when I leave she typically freaks out and I am about to spend most of the weekend with a friend from the west coast who is in town. My mother still wont positively affirm that she wants me to be here, rather she gets very angry when I leave. I still hope that she can one day admit that she wants me here then one day she will admit she want someone/anyone here with her.  I am going to try and work my way onto the lease. That would be the 'prize' I suppose , the apartment.

Even as far as cleaning up (and out) of things like old newspaper clippings, she can admit she does not care about them (except don't touch them) but she does not care if someone else has to spend their time throwing it all out after she is gone. On an up note she has begun to throw out clippings.

Mom wears at most 12 different garments yet every drawer and closet is full of crap. Efforts to get her to face the clean up of a life lived...it is tough.

Here is a another good example of her dis-ordered thinking. Mom insist on  storing paper goods in a closet that is stuffed with paintings. Everyonce and awhile a roll of toilet paper , a box of tissues or paper towels will fall off a shelf and press itself against the paintings. This event is always someones fault and brings yells and curses. When I ask her to consider storing the paper goods SOMEWHERE else where they can not damage these paintings....this is not seen as a reasonable solution