![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Dec. 31st, 2022 04:56 pmGrowing up, my mother apparently would not believe my brother or I and simply ignore things we told her, while, at the same time, repeating herself over and over. We took this as her not trusting us and it caused us to keep her at arm's length. People in her building are apparently reacting about the same way.
A lot of people, including my cousin, her sister, her daughter, my brother, one of her brothers, people at church, people in the building, (edit) various social workers, doctors, community outreach workers are trying to help her with various things. The work that each of us are doing seems to make each other believe that no one else is helping her. Often work done to help her amounts to naught, as the new phone she's set up with, she quickly gives up on at the first minor issue, then she runs around telling everyone she needs a new phone and her old one "doesn't work". A lot of her accumulating piles of duplicates seems to come from that. She thought her laptop stopped working when she knew she turned off the access point. Trying to erase her own role in things is part of how she hangs on to the support she needs, but that in itself frustrates and drives away people. If you give her a new iPhone and then a bit later hear her saying she needs a new iPhone, that comes across as awfully odd. But, as I said, sometimes a new version of something does smooth out bumps and allow her to maintain her own agency and independence. The flood of "I need to do X" comments where X along with Ys and Zs are repeated over and over, which are read as a request for help, but not filtered based on circumstances to be reasonable requests, likewise make people think my mother doesn't actually care about them. I'm not sure how to convince her to explain these failures of communication. As with the rate of communication, she just doesn't see herself doing it, or always has a rationalization handy for each individual thing that's adequate to her. But she's also long been blaming her odd communication on absolutely everything but. Part of her story is a run-in with probably 50's or 60's era mental health, including very dubious medical practise and temporary loss of her liberties, so her blaming her age, her hearing, menopause, having kids, being busy, and absolutely everything but being in anyway different is understandable, though often now counterproductive. She literally tried so hard to convince everyone that she isn't crazy, that people wonder about that instead of something more mundane, which is a shame. Still unpacking this. Or trying to assemble the pieces at least. This trip was supposed to be a quick bounce off of MN to IA and NE in large part of now knowing how to deal with all of this, but then I got stuck in the storm. This is some weak writing by the fates imo.
A lot of people, including my cousin, her sister, her daughter, my brother, one of her brothers, people at church, people in the building, (edit) various social workers, doctors, community outreach workers are trying to help her with various things. The work that each of us are doing seems to make each other believe that no one else is helping her. Often work done to help her amounts to naught, as the new phone she's set up with, she quickly gives up on at the first minor issue, then she runs around telling everyone she needs a new phone and her old one "doesn't work". A lot of her accumulating piles of duplicates seems to come from that. She thought her laptop stopped working when she knew she turned off the access point. Trying to erase her own role in things is part of how she hangs on to the support she needs, but that in itself frustrates and drives away people. If you give her a new iPhone and then a bit later hear her saying she needs a new iPhone, that comes across as awfully odd. But, as I said, sometimes a new version of something does smooth out bumps and allow her to maintain her own agency and independence. The flood of "I need to do X" comments where X along with Ys and Zs are repeated over and over, which are read as a request for help, but not filtered based on circumstances to be reasonable requests, likewise make people think my mother doesn't actually care about them. I'm not sure how to convince her to explain these failures of communication. As with the rate of communication, she just doesn't see herself doing it, or always has a rationalization handy for each individual thing that's adequate to her. But she's also long been blaming her odd communication on absolutely everything but. Part of her story is a run-in with probably 50's or 60's era mental health, including very dubious medical practise and temporary loss of her liberties, so her blaming her age, her hearing, menopause, having kids, being busy, and absolutely everything but being in anyway different is understandable, though often now counterproductive. She literally tried so hard to convince everyone that she isn't crazy, that people wonder about that instead of something more mundane, which is a shame. Still unpacking this. Or trying to assemble the pieces at least. This trip was supposed to be a quick bounce off of MN to IA and NE in large part of now knowing how to deal with all of this, but then I got stuck in the storm. This is some weak writing by the fates imo.
