It has been quite a while since my last posting, but with good reason. My job is going well, we are busy making our new house a home, and I am expecting a baby girl in June. I can honestly say that this is the happiest I have ever been in my entire life, a happiness I never thought existed.
Ever since I discovered I was expecting, I have made a conscious effort to keep my life as conflict/stress free as possible. I have done a good job so far, except for an incident involving my mother's health in January. My sister, who moved back in with my parents a couple of years ago, called me to check in, see how I was doing, and basically catch up with how things were going. At the end of the conversation she became very quiet and said, "I'm actually calling you because Mom's really sick." I asked her to elaborate because my mom has been plagued with various ailments over the years and I wasn't sure if this was something serious, or just a routine ache and pain. Apparantly, after having surgery a couple of weeks prior, my mom was running a fever and was still in excruciating pain. Her doctors were of no help, even when she called them asking to be seen. I asked my sister why she didn't take Mom to the hospital and her response was, "She won't go."
So... I called my mom to talk to her and when she didn't answer, I called my dad and then my brother to find out what they knew about the situation and what had already been done. When I finally spoke to Mom, she sounded terrible, told me she had had a fever for over a week, and was hearing music.
"Music?" I asked.
"Yes. It sounds like a radio is playing. I can't find a radio anywhere. It's scaring the hell out of me." That made two of us.
After several more minutes of pleading and then threatening to get in the car and drive there to take her myself, she relented and agreed to go to the emergency room. At this point, my husband came home from work to find me rather frazzled and extremely red in the face and chest. He grabbed the phone from me, spoke to my mom for a few minutes, and then called my brother and asked him to drive her to the hospital.
Mom spent four days in the hospital being treated for an infection related to her surgery. They also ordered a psych consult... red flags anyone?? I am not sure exactly what brought about the psych consult, but I know enough to know that they do not order one for no apparant reason. However, after the evaluation, they recommended she seek therapy and start trying to work through some of the "issues" she has, which is something I have been suggesting to her for years. Oddly enough, she actually seemed to be open to it. She said, "I feel like all of that stuff happened so long ago. Shouldn't I be over it by now?" I told her that burying the problems does not make them go away. She has a list of therapists they recommended and is looking into scheduling an appointment.
It is my hope that this is an opportunity for my mom to heal. As a kid, I did not know what depression was and I had no idea that it was the reason behind our cluttered life. I am starting to know a lot more about my mother, how she grew up, and some of the details from her life, and I am starting to understand how she uses possessions to distract her from the emotional pain. I am also understanding that I cannot change the past. I cannot erase the mess I grew up in or the abuse I went through. What I CAN do is support Mom in her quest to enter therapy, perhaps seek therapy for myself, work on continuing to rebuild our relationship, and prepare myself for a relationship with my own daughter once she gets here.
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