Since returning from our weekend Phoenix, I’ve been feeling super agitated and angry. As you know, in recent weeks, my parents have become more and more dependent on my help, and their lack of tech savvy and my mother’s overall inability to communicate makes helping them particularly trying. Now, the latest situation is that my father asked the post office to hold their mail for like two months. My dad filled out the form and designated his longtime office manager to pick up the mail before he got back– something about post office limits on holding mail and limits for when to pick up. Anyway, his office manager (whom I absolutely trust) insists that he didn’t instruct her to pick up the mail, so dad goes to the office and the rep says someone already came for the mail. WTF? My dad only entrusts two people. He asks both and neither one picked up the mail. Supposedly, the post office supervisor checked the designated name with id and then THREW OUT the form. No signature required, nothing. What kind of agency operates without a paper trail/record??? So now, my parents who are already a little nervous about account security, are freaking out bc well, bank statements, rent checks, investment statements. First, I’m like: why the hell are you still doing paper statements? Second, WTF, USPS? Is this an inside job? Sounds so sketchy. Thankfully, my dad’s friend is going to file a report to trigger an investigation. Seriously, who took their mail? Fucking pain in the ass.

Meanwhile, on one of dad’s properties, there twice has been a dead deer carcass. Animal control said they aren’t responsible for stuff on private property, so guess who disposed of the carcass from like 3 weeks ago? Yup, dad with rubber gloves. The dude is 71 y/o. Then yesterday, my parents call, and my mother wants to speak to me. She starts rattling off about dad helping my cousin with a down payment and how there’s no money, blah, blah. Mom is a fucking freak. I mean, if she’s flipping out about money then 1) why has she been so slow/lame/obstructionist about convincing her parents to sell their townhouse? 2) Her long lost brother appeared in Taiwan last week. Did she or dad even bother to ask him for shit to help support his parents? Nope. Didn’t even ask. Fucking Chinese culture, I tell you. Ultimately, the point of mom’s conversation with me (20 minutes later) was to tell me my father has been feeling really dizzy and unstable and he threw up multiple times over the last few days. He had an appointment that very afternoon with an ENT, but if things turned out to be serious, could I go back to Maryland to help her care for him? Immediately, I grew so angry. Just her circuitous communication style and now her helplessness and neediness. And I absolutely blame her and my brother for all the stress Dad has been under. Again, their incompetence and utter lack of action caused this.

Then my dad got on the phone and said his self-diagnosis is that it’s stress induced. I grew so angry that everything had come to this. I started blaming my mother, and my dad just said look, she doesn’t have the capacity. Her mind can’t handle all of this. The years of anxiety and worry over Johnny have crumbled her mind. Well, still. I was pissed. I told you guys to let go of the Johnny bullshit. Then he started crying, rambling about never asking me to repair my relationship with my brother but that Johnny is doing better and is becoming more mature. Blah, blah. The whole spiel again about how my “helping Johnny is you helping us.” Fucking A!!!  Even if Johnny were better and more mature (his FB feed these days is all about Feeling the Bern, so what, now he’s suddenly a socialist?!?)… Who the fuck cares? He’s utterly useless! I admit, on my last visit to Taiwan, he showed progress, but goddamnit, it’s too little too late. And it’s like basic math: if you start with 1 and DOUBLE that (Wowee, 100% growth), you’re still only at 2. So he’s better, so what? How does that serve any of us? A 2 is not gonna give us jackshit. It’s not that I am trying to pawn off my responsibilities, but seriously, why isn’t Johnny helping them with logistics, paperwork, travel shit over in Taiwan? Why am I being called to help from afar? That’s what I mean. Fucking take care of the low-hanging fruit!! Whatever.

Referring to my cousin, my dad just said he only helps family when he can, if he has the ability. He mentioned the Chinese term yuan, which is most closely defined as a combination of fate, destiny, and affinity/connection. He said it was his yuan to support and care for my mother’s parents, just like it is his yuan to have a daughter like me. Oh God, and then we’re both crying. My father is a very stoical person, so it just breaks my heart when he cries. I told him to call me after the medical appointment.

As soon as I got off the phone, I fucking went ballistic. I was so fucking furious. And of course, I’m home alone with Marty conked out (he was so tired after returning from the sitter’s). Entering into a fit of rage, which for me, is completely silent and internal but inside, I am going fucking bonkers. I know the blame game doesn’t help anything, but I absolutely blame my mother and her stubborn insistence on helping my brother at ALL COSTS for all of this: an entire history of stress, extra work, and now my father’s health problems. If she weren’t so fucking psyscho and senseless, multiple people wouldn’t have the added stress of trying to carry out her ridiculous wishes and demands– all of which she is unable to execute on her own. Somedays, I really hate her.

And then I try to calm myself down. She’s mental. How can you fault someone for an illness? But, do I really believe it’s an illness? I don’t know. And even if it really were, why doesn’t she just keep her shit to herself? Why does she have to drive everyone else around her fucking crazy? Like the whole eldercare situation with her parents. Back and forth about their security and not trusting the caretakers and this and that. Fucking paranoia central and to accommodate her insanity, so much more work for other people. I mean, my aunts now are next door checking in on them daily and then mom’s getting stingy about dad giving money to his own family? It’s just absolute bullshit. The real answer should have been to put my grandparents in a senior community/campus and ask the brother for help paying for it. Done. Repeated bad decision making.

The good news is that dad called late last night, and the ENT doctor thinks everything is just stress-related but nothing super dire like a stroke or rupture. Rest, muscle relaxers, steroids, etc. I thought yesterday though about how at some point, I will have to go there to help them. And I know mom would just fucking drive me mad, just like she did when I was back there for my grandfather’s fall/surgery. All lip and no helpful action whatsoever. Well, that’s not true: she cooked/cleaning for my grandparents for the last ten months. That counts for SOMEthing. Fine, but again, it is precisely her paranoia that prohibited us from using their resources to make things easier on everyone. That is entirely unacceptable to me.

I know my emotions are harsh and my words unkind. She’s still my mother. Frankly, I wish I were a bigger and better person, but I just don’t know how to reconcile these opinions I have of her. I think I’m going to have to go to therapy soon.