I am so exhausted, just completely drained. I feel like I've been run over by a truck.
Yes, you guessed it, I've been talking to my mother....
To cut to the chase, we had a guest speaker in class with schizoid affective disorder, talking about his chapter of NAMI. This sounds very much like IHD for those with mental illness. I really don't know why, but I opened my big mouth and asked his opinion about people who refuse to take meds because they argue that it does more harm than good, and they have the articles from reasonably reliable sources to support their worldview. Did he know of anyone with mental illness who has made a go of it without meds? His answer was that he knew two. We talked after class. I've mentioned before that I have a brother who has had a few diagnoses and basically is watching his life slip away because his illness is so debilitating. Because they are the same age, this NAMI rep gave me his card and said he would be willing to talk to my brother if he would be willing to give him a call.
So, I had this card in my handbag. My brother and I do not speak, and I was very clear with this rep that for my own sanity, I cut him out of my life. He understood. He said my brother sounds 'sheltered' and I said yeah, that's the problem, he'll waste his life away because my parents don't know what to do, they'll never kick him out of the house, and my mother has read some articles and now fancies herself an authority on psychotropics, and feels totally vindicated because there is an expert or two who agrees with her. I debated with Gwyn whether or not to call her and suggest she talk to this man or pass the info along to my brother. I could have ignored it, and in many ways it is none of my business. However, you would never ever guess that I was trying to help given her reaction and how it all turned into comparisons between how she approached my medical issues and how she deals with my brother. I am not sure what possessed me to even talk to this man after class, and I guess I regret the whole episode. I wound up in a 3-hour shouting match with my mother. Her story about anything and everything changes every time she talks to me. Her defense today was a classic: it's not my decision, I can't tell him what to do. My mother has never kept her nose out of anyone's business. This from the woman who badgered me for days over not breast feeding, but she feels she cannot tell the guy in the guest room that he needs to start taking steps to get his life back.
In the end I told her that this man is part of a peer-to-peer program, that this is what has really helped me but that I did not want to go into details about that with her, and that that was it, that was the extent of my big ulterior motive- here's the number, call if you want, call your local chapter if you want, or ignore the whole thing but don't expect anyone, including my brother, to ever thank you for these choices. My brother was a very violent kid and with two boys of my own, I just cannot imagine ignoring problems like him routinely pulling a bread knife on me when he was 3 or 4. I told her if it's not a mother's job and a father's job to help their kids through these issues, then I'm not sure what our job actually is. She denied saying or doing all manner of things that I know perfectly well she's said and done, and for at least one of them, Gwyn was there and heard it for himself. I told her that all she seems to care about is winning the argument in the moment, because yes, it is well nigh impossible to argue with someone who claims that they cannot remember doing or saying anything. (Actually a favourite moment of mine in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? occurs when George plays a little trick on the other three, then they all have a laugh together, and then Martha tries to reminisce with him about it and he says 'I don't remember'. The alienation is palpable, because of course he remembers! It just happened! But it does shut down the moment completely. See it for yourselves, even Edward Albee thinks the film version is quite good!)
So, yeah, I'm tired and feeling that horrible 'wish I'd never bothered' feeling tonight. Bah!
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