PtSD (part 1)
[Written after Mom was first moved to Assisted Living, Autumn/2023]:
Can you have PTSD without being in a war? It feels unfair of me to even speculate about this because there is so much real suffering in this world and I’m just a white, middle aged woman who is at the natural stage in life where I’ve been fortunate enough to have aging parents and now I have to take care of them. A blessing really.
However, whenever my mother is angry and yells at me the little girl in me feels like I did something wrong. I just can’t get over that feeling & I don’t feel blessed.
Mom’s directed anger at me all my life. Sometimes it was warranted like when I was a kid and I didn’t clean up after myself, which was quite, often. Or as a teenager when I always called out her passive aggressive behavior even when it was rather sweet. Like mom always saying, “don’t you feel like ice cream? Why don’t you want ice cream?” When it was always her that felt like the ice cream. Other times she just plain took out her pain on me. When my father left her after 23 years of marriage and I tried to talk to her about my own need to still have a relationship with my dad, she just scoffed and said, “just wait until it happens to you, you’ll see.”
But In the past 3.5 years I should know better. It’s her vascular dementia that is making her angry and is making her yell at me over the most mundane things. It’s not me, but it feels like it’s me. I’m to blame.
As I’m writing this the phone rings, “Hello mom” I almost sing my answer trying to sound as chipper as I can. No sweet hello back. “Yeah you didn’t come. You didn’t come. How am I supposed to. Youuu just didn’t”. She draws out the “you” in a tone so threatening one might mistake her for a killer in a horror move. What is it she’s angry about? Mom has lost much of her vocabulary these past few years and can’t express herself so I’ve had to hone my deductive skills. I’m pretty sure when she says, “the brown, you know. the brown there were 2 and now there’s not and the brown and what am I going to do?” I’m guessing she means she no longer has her eyebrow pencil. “Youuuu don’t know, “ she hangs up. It’s Tuesday she’s called 6 times about this since I last saw her on Sunday. When I was with her she told me she didn’t need anything. Yet because she has called me and since I still want so much to please her I send her same day delivery eyeliner from Amazon. I didn’t even realize Amazon had “same day” for something as non essential as eyeliner, but they do if you can add up $20 in qualifying purchases. I get 2 eyebrow pencils, eyeliner, and I include some band aids because mom must put band aids on each of her fingers for some reason and I send rubber gloves because mom does not want to get her hands wet in the shower. In fact mom no longer washes her hands after using the bathroom unless you argue and fight with her and make her do it getting those hands wet.
These are not habits of a sane woman, but when mom yells at me about not having these things she is still my very sane mother and I am her daughter who has done something wrong and I think I have to admit I have PTSD from taking care of her for the last few years.