Here I am! Just thought I would type up on a topic so I could get my writing in for the week, I haven't done my daily doses as I planned, not surprising though! ha. So today I will discuss a little bit of how hard it is to care for an aging mother and being an only child.
I am an only child, God did this on purpose for his own reasons, I may not think it's fair, but I have to deal with that. My Mom is 71. She had me when she was 36. I am 35. On my next birthday I will be half of her age. Or really, I'll just be as old as she was when she had me.
So, as I mentioned, she is 71. Which is aging, but not so "old". My Mom has some mental issues or come to find out, maybe not mental issues, but a form of asperger's (need to check my spelling here) . She is a high functioning autistic person. If I knew this a long time ago, maybe I could have dealt with a lot of things differently. I didn't even know what autism was until I became a preschool teacher and one of my students was diagnosed. Well, my students dx was discovered about 25 years after becoming my mothers daughter.
All along doctors said my Mom was bi-polar. Grandma told me close to when she dies that she was not entirely convinced that my mom, her child was mentally ill. She thought maybe she was autistic. I am so glad she opened her mouth and said that before she died or I would go to my grave thinking my Mom was something she was not. This was about 5 years ago. (more to the story) My Mom makes me Cookoo crazy!!! She has been living with us for the past 12 years. I was pregnant with my 2nd child when I was finally able to accept the fact that my mother would never be able to hold a job or live on her own., and not be homeless under a bridge, literally. She was living in a women's shelter when we made the decision to co-habitate. I do make sure others know we co-habitate and that "we don't live with my mom" To me it's so important to make sure that others know that. I guess I care what they think too much, or I don't want to share with them the stories from a hurtful and shameful past. What do they need to know? Well, turns out they are going to know very soon. I have to share these things, for my own mental health and so my kids can know, maybe it will help someone else feel like they are not alone, or I can find someone who has been through a similar situation. Maybe So I can make excuses for my poor and intolerant behavior. So far I can only identify with some of the families and children of people on the show "Hoarders". But I can only watch them on TV, I wish I could talk to them in person..... Anyway, dropping this here for now so I can collect more organized thoughts before I open the can of worms.
I get distracted and I feel unorganized by expressing the timeline of these happenings, it is so compicated and multifaceted that I just don't have the time to crack open each point.
This should get my brain going....till next time.
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