Before I landed in the hospital, I was living a staid and probably boring to many people life. This was during the pandemic, which meant I was pretty much a shut-in. I went out once a month to the pharmacy to get my meds. I had been opening up a little bit because I was fully vaxxed, but that meant going to Cubs twice and to pick up lunch with my brother once. In other words, I wasn’t going wild, by any means, but I was taking baby steps.
Then I ended up in the hospital and I suddenly didn’t care about the pandemic any longer. Or rather, I should say, it was no longer at the top of my list of things to worry about. Understandably, I had other things on my mind. Also, while I was in the hospital, I was constantly around people and I was not wearing a mask. Everyone else was, of course, but I was not. I had a breathing tube shoved up my nose for the first week and a half and then an oxygen tube for the next few days. I had to wear a mask when I was taken from room to room, but other than that, the pandemic was not visible in any way.
It also made me realize that I was…not overreacting, but focusing too much on the pandemic in my daily life. I spent a year-and-a-half shut in my house, fearing to talk to or see anyone. I’m not saying that was the wrong reaction because it was a fucking pandemic. But now that I’m vaxxed and about to get my booster, I’m being more realistic about the endemic. It’s not going anywhere. We’re going to have to live with it. If I get it, it probably won’t be life-threatening. It’ll be like the flu–getting a shot every year with a couple thousand people dying and the rest just being miserable.
Side note: It’s funny how the same question asked by different people can get a vastly different response. It makes sense, really, as the relationship with different people are, well, different. So something that is innocuous from one person is invasive from another. It’s just difficult to explain. I was trying to elaborate on this on Twitter about my father, using the example of him asking if I’m cold. I painstakingly laid out all the reasons it’s not just an innocuous question from him and there was still someone who was dismissive of my experience.
It’s also difficult to know what proper boundaries are when you’re used to your family thoroughly trouncing on yours. My mom doesn’t believe in boundaries and she tries to rationalize it by saying it’s Taiwanese culture. Which, fine. Different cultures have different boundaries, but that doesn’t mean one is inherently better than another. There are bad things in all culture and saying something is a part of your culture is not an automatic pass for problematic behavior.
It’s a vicious loop. Because my parents don’t believe in boundaries, I erect them as high as possible. Too high? Perhaps, but it’s because I know that my parents will push at them until I give in. It’s easy to talk about abuse in the abstract, but it’s much harder to look at it on a granular level. Things can seem a certain way when you’re looking at them with a dispassionate eye, but then turn on a dime when you’re personally involved.
For example, I’m going to the heart doc today to have an echocardiogram done. I asked my brother if he would drive me because he’s more comfortable with driving than I am. And a much better driver. He said fine, but I would have been OK driving myself, too. I’ll admit I’m glad he can do it. My mom emailed me saying she knew I had a heart doc appointment and was wondering how I was getting there. My instinctive response was to grimace and flinch. My normal method of dealing with my parents and my personal life is to make sure the twain never meets. I don’t tell my parents anything, basically. That all went to hell over the past few months because they were here and were all up in my business. For the first month or so, they were in on my medical appointments. Not really sure why except they just assumed they would be in on them.
You have to realize that I’ve been doing everything for myself for the past thirty years. I don’t answer to anyone and that’s exactly how I like it. Having my parents questioning every little thing for two-and-a-half months was a trial. I was relieved when they went home because I thought it meant I could get back to living my life without interference from them.
In addition, it’s highly irritating to be treated like a child when I’m fucking fifty years old. I don’t need help getting to a doctor’s appointment. I mean, yes, I asked my brother to drive me, but that was my choice. And I am perfectly capable of doing it myself. Whenever I point this out to my mom, she goes into wounded deer mode and make it all about her feelings. “I don’t know how to talk to you.” “You’re so sensitive.” “You overreact to everything.” I bought that shit for thirty to forty years of my life. It was only during this last visit that I realized, yes, she does know how to talk to me! Or at least how not to talk to me! I’ve asked her not to treat me like a child. She makes the excuse that she’s a mother. Yes, but of a fifty-year old person. One who has taken care of myself for decades. I told her at some point, she has to just trust me that I can take care of myself.
But she doesn’t. And now she can use my recent health scare as an excuse to infantilize me. But I have a system and it works! I’m still alive because my system worked as intended! Additionally, she as a psychologist, she should know you can’t force someone to love someone else or be closer to another person. It’s so frustrating that she completely ignores her training when it comes to her personal life.
This visit shone a bright light on the darkness in my family. Something I had known, but tried to ignore for decades. The rot runs deep and it’s not going to be eradicated in my lifetime. Or rather, before someone in the family dies. There were times in the last few months that I felt my heart was literally breaking. I was alive! That was a miracle and should have been rejoiced over. Instead, I was made to feel like I had to earn the right to live–that my existence was secondary to that of my father’s. My mom can profess all she wants that her heart is with my brother and me, but we both know that’s not true. Her first allegiance always has been and is to my father.
I’ve recounted this anecdote several times, but it really symbolizes all that’s wrong with my family. The second day I was home from the hospital, my mother was bugging me to show my father a Taiji exercise that has cleared up my back problems. one exercise done once a day cleared up all my back problems, but it took several months before it helped at all and a full year before it completely worked. More to the point, I was hopped up on drugs, had just woken up from being unconscious for a week, and I had suffered pneumonia (probably still had it at that point), two cardiac arrests, and a stroke. In other words, I needed to rest. But, no. My mom wouldn’t let it go, so despite how I felt, I spent a half hour showing my father this one exercise. Then, later that day, he wanted me to Google something for him. I couldn’t read fonts at that point, which was causing me all kinds of stress. You would think that would be a consideration to my father, but, again, no. He kept pushing me to Google ‘just one thing’ until I flat-out told him I couldn’t read at the moment, so, no, I couldn’t Google the one thing. In retaliation, he ‘accidentally’ knocked a bottle of my meds off the table.
That was day two of me being home from the hospital. I knew then that my life was not worth as much as my father’s–at least not in the eyes of my parents. It’s not a lesson I’ll forget any time soon.