Help! Mother's in town

Yesterday I returned to my old demons, checking e-mail multiple times per day. I hoped to get some solace by doing that, but in fact it only aggravated my anxiety.

I've been paying more attention recently to exactly how my mother undoes me. This morning I did not want to get out of bed, because she was throwing stuff around in the garage. She started doing that last night, while I was out at the theater with one of my sons, and my other son called because he was worried and scared. First I called a friend to see if I could find sanctuary at his apartment, but he was busy. So I gathered up my courage and went to ask my mother if she had found the thing she was looking for, which last night she blamed me for losing. She holds me responsible for taking care of the things she left in my garage, without telling me about them, because she has been carefully hoarding the stuff I left in my grandmother's house in London, which I told her she could throw away. Anyway, I don't say anything. Not about that, or the foods she left in the refrigerator and told me, which I stored on a special shelf for her while she was gone.

So she starts on at me about how she always thought I would make a contribution to humanity with my brilliant, mathematical mind and she doesn't see how I can possibly make a living in the present economic climate by being a therapist. I say nothing about the fact that when I was a teenager, she encouraged me to go to art school when I dropped out of my undergrad in physics and math. I say nothing about the fact that she has never held down a job of any kind or supported herself financially by working. She goes on to talk about recent research in clinical neuropsychology, and how someone at Stanford found that baby rats who received more maternal touch thrived, physically as well as mentally, compared with those receiving less or no touch. Ironic, I think silently in my head. Well, you did at least touch me, for the first few years until my brother was born and then he was so sick that he took up all your attention. But what about saying forever that my first sentence, at 9 months or some ridiculous age, was 'squirrels eat acrons but people don't. Why?' You proudly thought I was showing signs of being a budding scientist, when in reality I just wanted to eat the acorns. Not sure what would be the rat equivalent of that.

Then she goes on to suggest that I should introduce my shy son to girls by having an au-pair or sending him for tutoring, or language school in France. I remember the young men she employed as housekeepers when I was that age, and the tutors, and being sent away to Europe. Maybe that's what it was all about. All I say is that he'll learn to talk to people in his own time.

I patiently try to explain what I'm doing with my life, the degree to which I know what it is, and the degree to which it might just be a fad or a phase I'm passing through. Not sure why I try. I proudly announce that I've been asked to teach another yoga class. Here I am, working both in paid and volunteer jobs almost every day of the week, completing my second doctorate, trying to excuse myself to someone that dropped out of a Masters' in Art History and never worked.

I thought that it wouldn't get to me this time. You've been here for two and a half days, and I just want to cry.

You are very sweet about it now, trying to take it back after, this is new. I'm sure that your parents never did that. Your mother threw stuff and worse, she knowingly threw words in order to cause serious harm. And your foot and knee hurt, after falling last week, so you can't walk as much as usual to get the energy out that way. Pain can make one irritable.

Maybe I need to stand up and object to some of this. Just waiting for the storm to pass over, there is not a lot of point in yelling at the sky. Not sure what I'm dealing with. Are you a force of nature, or an angry kitten? Or maybe just a storm in a teacup.