The Beauty Shop Re-Visited...Continued

But what was even better was the conversation.  Apparently, my Mom was impressed with my jobs.  As you know, I always seemed to be working with the mentally ill or alcoholics or whatever.  So, my Mom said to me:  “I really don’t understand how you can talk to those kinds of people”. After I got over my shock, I said: “What do you mean”?  She said, totally seriously: “Oh, you know…they have all those problems”. You can probably imagine what was going through my mind. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I did neither. I just told her that I liked working with people.

For me, that was a totally amazing conversation. I am still not sure whether she was really that unaware of her own problems. But it said something to me about all the years of anger and hurt.  When she was getting angry at me over all the confrontations, she really didn’t get it. Just like with the accusations that my Dad was “queer”.  (Boy, do I hate that word.) And now, it brings back to me a conversation I had with a woman when I was working in an inpatient psychiatric hospital. She had been hospitalized due to psychotic depression. Or maybe it was dementia? Whatever she was in the hospital for, her issues came up clearly in a conversation I had with her. I went to her room to tell her that the nurse had her medication. She asked me if I was there to take her to the ovens to kill her. My heart broke. My nurturing side came out. I tried to reassure her. And I walked her to the nursing station trying to convince her that I wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head. Of course, she wasn’t convinced.

Both situations explain something very basic about mental illness. When someone is mentally ill, they just don’t get it. They don’t realize that what they are saying isn’t reasonable, or logical, or even very nice. And I spent how many years trying to reason with my Mother? Trying to convince her that she was wrong? Now, I get it. If I had the ability to do those years over with my Mom…I would handle it differently. Or maybe I wouldn’t. After all, I was a child. And I am not sure I would be able to use the insight that I have now. When we are children, we behave as children. However, what that knowledge did do for me is that I have a whole lot more understanding of Mom now. Unfortunately, she died when my daughter was a teenager. And as I have said before, up to the day she died, I could still be triggered. Maybe I wouldn’t be perfect in dealing with her even now. Mom could do and say things that infuriated me. But my love for her is very present. I love you, Mom.  I love you in spite of the struggles.  I love you in spite of the anger.  I love you in spite of the name-calling. I love you in spite of the pain. Mom, I simply love you.