Alone With Her

This blog is updated because a reader caught me "rewriting history" even though I didn't mean to. I will highlight the parts that I changed and if you are curious what set this in motion, please read Martha's comment and my reply to her.
My Mom is coming to visit in three weeks. I want to feel excited and I do feel excited but I feel nervous, too.

We have not been alone since her nervous breakdown.

This past Christmas we talked about my Mom and Dad coming to visit me here in California because my older sister wasn't coming home. Then my younger sister decided she'd like to go have Christmas with my older sister. I didn't want to go back to that house, where it all happened and where I had not been since it happened, and be all alone.

So I invited my parents here. Then the fear came. What if she had another "episode?" Where would I take her? Would they accept her insurance? (I'm very practical.) How would we get her home after?

I thought how I reacted when it first happened the Christmas before last... and it didn't make me feel very capable of being able to handle anything happening to her this Christmas. I'm not quite ready to describe exactly what went on that night, I will just say that I burst into tears and when running for my little sister.

My mother came after me, downstairs. The things she was saying were just... crazy and frightening and even though I can now reason, that was not her, she was not there... all I could do was run, past her and up the stairs to get my father.

E and I had just taken him out to lunch that day to say, "Something is wrong. Something is very wrong." He insisted it wasn't, Mom was fine. He said we should do a toast to all his girls being home. We did and he said, "Don't clink any booze outta my glass."

I know. I mean, he was kidding. But we were all kidding ourselves. Hiding. Having a drink during the day to deal with what would come just that night.

What's strange is, I have no memory of what happened just before it happened. That seems so unbelievable. It was late, why were we all up? Something must have made it happen? What was it?

But it was me who burst into tears and E who sprang into action. First with the plan to get her into bed, then to drug her so we could come up with a better plan. Then hunting and pecking all over the house to find all of my Mom's pills.

I was hiding down in E's bedroom when she brought them to me. There were 6 or 7 bottles. E, "All different doctors." What? Some were anti-depressants. Some were anti-anxiety. Some were sleeping pills. Then E got out my Mom's date book with phone numbers and just started calling. She didn't care that it was 1:00am. She was a private detective, on a mission, trying to put the pieces together of how my Mom, a therapist herself had conned so many doctors into prescibing conflicting meds. Yeah, she's a therapist... so that's probably how.

I did end up pulling my end. It's amazing how we fall into our strengths. E was good with the factual stuff. The talking to doctors, the calling of my Mom's friends to see who knew what when (and shockingly, they all knew, for a very long time...). I was good at cooking for my Mom, sitting with her, keeping her on a schedule.

But I wished I had been E. She had the strength. Although, I did one day (this automatically brings a smile to my face) go into my father's bedroom while he was sleeping, rip off the covers and he jolted awake. "What? What?" he said. I said, "You knew this has been going on for a year. We're not playing this your way anymore. We're playing it my way. And if you back down to anything E or I say, we're getting on a plane and leaving you to handle this all alone."

"Okay, okay," he said.

I had to leave the room, because I was so shocked he went along with it. I didn't want him to see the surprise on my face.

So I guess I have to remember that part of me when she comes out here. I can handle it. I can handle anything.


This blog is dedicated to readers who leave comments after feeling a little awkward that the blogger may have just revealed a wee too much about her family.

Alone With Her