Tuesday was a rough day. I more or less emotionally shut down and I’ve been trying to process it while working on my book’s outline. Okay it was more like pretending not to feel anything about it while burying myself into a project.
The day started with Dad yelling at Mom that the chest pain might be a heart attack and that she should go to the ER because if she didn’t she could die. It just came out of the blue. I was working on the book, bringing my coffee back to the desk actually and stopped in my tracks. This time it wasn’t about Dad having a heart attack, it was about Mom. And she was sitting there in the chair looking like shit, weak, and all washed out. My mom.
And Dad looked at me and asked me to take her to the ER. HE DOESN’T COME WITH US. He had other things to do at home. Like what the fuck. My only challenge to that was passive-aggressively stating that I had an appointment that I couldn’t miss otherwise I would end up back on the waiting list. I started to get a bullshit apology from him, so I just left. Closed the door on it and drove Mom to the ER. I have no words for the rage I felt.
Just last week he bitched to me about how Mom spends so much time on the computer and does nothing with him. He pisses and moans about how their relationship is shit. Yet she was the one that every time he has gone into medical crisis she has put her entire life on hold to be right there by his side every second of it. When she goes into crisis where the fuck is he? He can’t be bothered. He has things to do. He convinces her she might die if she doesn’t go yet he can’t even take the time to be with her. Because for whatever reason working on that bedroom is way more important. Not going told her that. He didn’t need to say it in words.
I know it’s not my fight. I know it’s between my parents. The problem is it mirrors exactly the relationship I had with Scholar Owl’s father. It mirrors exactly the relationship I have with Little Bear’s father, my husband. So I’m angry. Then and now. You want your other half to reach out and make an effort to connect with you, then you had better make damn sure you do the same. Otherwise shit like this makes people give up.
So we get to the ER and they hook my mother up to all kinds of shit. They draw blood and run X-rays. I was trying my best to hold my shit together. I was on the verge of a panic attack. Between my mother in crisis and my morbid fear of hospitals I wasn’t doing well. At one point Mom asked me to call my sister because apparently she rather had her there than me. That’s how NOT HELPFUL my presence was in there. The last thing Mom needed was to see me go into crisis on top of everything else. And of course my sister had to work and wasn’t able to come unless Mom took a turn for the worse where we were waiting on lab results. Finally Mom just kicked me out, telling me to give her car keys to Dad and go to my appointment.
Sure we talked a bit before that point. She tried to hit me with the “you have no motivation anymore” bullshit again but that’s for another post, another day. I left like she told me too. When I got back to the house I handed Dad the keys and told him that Mom said he needed to be there. He said, “So it’s not a heart attack.” I told him I didn’t know because they were waiting for the lab results and still have her hooked up to everything. There was no way for me to tell him at that point that Mom was okay. I just went back downstairs and headed for my car so I could go to my appointment that was an hour drive away. Even then I knew I would end up early for it but I couldn’t stay because I KNEW I would rage vomit on him if I did.
When I did finally see the therapist I just dumped everything on her. I’m tired. So very tired. Of everything. Why must so many people think it’s acceptable to treat others this way? And the most alarming thing about it all is that it’s the so called “normal” people that are the guilty party. And when we the sick, the ill, and the disordered get upset and call them out for it suddenly we are wrong and we are punished for it.
It’s not right. It needs to stop.
In the end, my mother was okay. It appears that she had a reaction to the medication that was used for the annual colonoscopy they did Monday. Still it was scary. And I’m still angry that my dad had convinced her that it was a heart attack only to then not go in with her. Why the fuck would you feel the need to scare someone that much? And apparently he didn’t even think that was what the problem was based on what he said and how he said it when I gave him the keys. WHY? Why fucking do that? To make her go? Was that it? Wouldn’t it have been just easier to take her and say, “Well let’s go and find out what the problem is?” and not make it a scary thing? Let’s not forget that Mom worked as an Intermediate EMT at one point in her life. Don’t you think she is capable of deciding for herself if she needs to go in or not? So I think it’s pretty shitty he felt the need to play the heart attack card like that and feed into a deep rooted fear to make her go. Honestly I don’t think Mom thought it was a heart attack until Dad said it was. Yet he is so quick to accuse family members of being hypochondriacs. And bullshit like that is wrong.
You want your relationships to be happy? You want your relationships to work? Then you NEED to do the damn work and put in the effort. You need put your life on hold when your partner is in crisis. Every. Time. And it doesn’t have to be only when they go to ER. Here is a fine example of when it’s done right and how much it means. IT MATTERS. The little things matter too, even with our friends and co-workers. IT ALWAYS MATTERS. It gives us light. It adds to hope.
Same goes for us with illnesses. We have good days. Let’s take advantage of them. Use the good days to show gratitude for those in our lives. When we have strength, lend it. Even if those times are few and far between. And especially during our darkest hour we must try to be mindful to show gratitude for those that stay by our side.
And when we fail to do these things when the need arises, we are tossing our relationships into the trash. Stop doing that.