I don’t quite remember how old I was, maybe college. I was talking to my mom on the phone, responding to what felt like yet another baseless fear, another unreasonable demand, her anxiety seeping into me like a toxic chemical. All of a sudden I had a lightbulb moment, a near epiphany for me. I realized for the first time that my mother’s anxiety did not have to be my anxiety. It occurred to me that just because she thought something was an immediate problem requiring action, it wasn’t necessarily so. I had the power within me to choose differently, to say no, not now, not today, not this week and break the cycle of her compulsive nature constricting me. Relief washed over me like a cleansing waterfall.
My dad’s answer was to comply, acquiesce. You know how she is, he would say.
My answer was to limit my exposure, cut telephone conversations short, visit less often and for a shorter time. I could enjoy her this way, in small doses.
That mostly worked until now. Now I am responsible for my aging mother whose capacity to think and understand is increasingly limited and whose anxiety is now in overdrive, with medication. I can no longer limit my exposure as a way of coping.
True, I have more skills now. I’m a psychotherapist for goodness sake. Let me tell you how that is working out. Not really.
Any attempts I’ve made to help my mom feel less anxious go way wrong. When I try to whittle down to what is underneath her anxiety, that fidgety feeling she has, she says she doesn’t know. She gets frustrated. I DON’T KNOW, Dyanne she says angrily. I say, breathe, what is the worst thing that could happen right now in this moment. A stroke she says. Not exactly what I am looking for.
The pattern is the same. If I take time away, she does fine for a while and then a manufactured crisis suddenly presents itself with me returning to put out the fire. Because if I don’t …. she escalates and takes matters into her own hands. She gets a bill in the mail for an inheritance tax. Every time I turn around, she says, the government wants my money. She doesn’t understand why she must pay. She thinks if she doesn’t pay it right now, the government will fine her and maybe even put her in jail. She wants to know if I plan on bailing her out. She starts dropping by the accountant’s office unannounced hoping to see and talk to him. I keep telling her to wait until I get there, I know how to fill out the form and will take care of it. No, she can’t wait. Her friend tells her to come to her house to calm down a bit. I get there. The bill that might cause her jail time- $64, which she did overpay by not filling out the form correctly.
She sighs repeatedly exhaling audibly when she’s anxious. The loud exhale envelopes the room and holds me hostage. Her anxiety starts to seep into me once again. I remind myself to put my protective shield of light around me and take my own deep breaths. She cannot be consoled. She won’t listen to reason. It doesn’t compute in her over-anxious brain.
I’m brought back to my childhood when I HAD to do as I was told even if it made no sense to me. She doesn’t understand the difference between a want and a need. She thinks she needs to vacuum every week even though she’s almost 88, lives by herself and wears inside shoes. At times my patience wears thin. I feel guilty. I am not being compassionate enough I tell myself. Then I feel angry. I am here for her when she wasn’t there for me leaving me defenseless. That’s a BIG topic for another time. How could she have gotten through an entire life with no real emotional skills, no way to sooth herself?? Is it her brain or her personality that refuses to absorb possible alternatives? It’s like she has her fingers in her ears, lalala, I can’t hear you!
How do I be a good caretaker, a good daughter when I am feeling triggered by her behaviors, when the past comes into the present reminding me of everything I needed to distance myself from to know what normal life felt like.
And there it is, a subset of feelings underneath the exasperation.
I feel invisible, unheard, not good enough. Feelings that have been tagging along behind me most of my life.
Audible sigh.
I thought I had moved past this, worked through it all, healed myself.
I guess that’s the blessing in it all. My mother is giving me the opportunity for another level of healing. One where I understand what’s happening in the present moment, in real time, where I continue to heal myself and offer up compassion to both of us simultaneously in the same breath.
Now I feel her emotional pain. I feel what it must be like for her not to know what to do with her emotions, experiencing them like they are permanent states. I have empathy for how she got here, the life she’s lived. I accept she does not have the capacity to change. My little girl self no longer must distance herself. Now I tread water in the sea of past, present and future.
That’s next level stuff, I’m sure of it. I think it might even be unconditional love.
I am a good daughter.
