For the first fifty years of my life (everything other than this year, in other words), I was an anxious person. Taiji helped mitigate it somewhat, but it was still always there.
I come by it honestly. My mom is a highly-anxious person, and when I try to address it with her, she has a million reasons why it’s a reasonable reaction to what’s going on. Eventually, I give up and she thinks she’s won the conversation/discussion/debate. In reality, I just lose steam and can’t be bothered to keep going. Not when I know it won’t make a difference in the end.
I once read about how ruminating/griping doesn’t help because you aren’t doing anything practical about the problem, but you feel as if you are. That really made sense in terms of my mother. She spends a half hour rattling on about a problem (most often having to do with my father), but doesn’t come to any conclusion. And does it again. And again. Then thanks me for listening. As if I have a choice.
It drives me mad that she says she shouldn’t talk to me about my father, then does it, anyway. The last time she was here, I flat-out told her not to say she shouldn’t talk about it because we both knew she would. At one point recently, she had the gall to say that it was my duty as her kid to listen to her bitch about her marriage. And she’s a psychologist!
She shut up about that quickly when I pointed out that this was back-ass-wards from what should actually happen. The parents were supposed to be the ones who take care of the kids, worrying about them and making sure they’re OK, not vice-versa. It’s tricky because I imagine in a healthy family, of course you’re going to worry about your parents as they age.
But that’s because you worry about someone you love. If you don’t love that person, it’s much harder to worry about them except in the general sense. Like, I mean, I wish everyone well and don’t wish anyone harm in the global sense.
But, you cannot make someone love, care, or respect someone if they don’t. My mother wrote a wrought email to my brother and me (while they were last here) about how in Taiwanese culture, you’re supposed to respect your elders. Therefore, we should love and respect our father more. I told her you can’t make someone love or respect some more than they already do. I could grit my teeth and fake it, yes, but that’s just an illusion.
It doesn’t matter, though. It’s all for show. She wants my father to feel as if he’s love and respected–it doesn’t matter if it’s real. For example, when they and my brother’s family went on a cruise, she had my brother buy the tickets and tell my father he had paid for them–even though she gave my brother the money. My brother told me that she later told my father she had paid for them, which defeated the purpose.
She claims she can’t lie to him because he can always tell. Then why even try? Many times, her problems are of her own making, and then she just compounds them.