I think my parents were extra-diligent to make me independent and self-sufficient. Maybe it was foreshadowing for the future they knew was inevitable.
Then when my parents' divorced I was totally parentified, and had to flex my "be in charge" skills.
And they did a good job, I am good at it.
I don't know how to ask for help, because even when I wanted/needed it, there was nobody around who could help.
So I learned how to figure things out on my own. How to take care of things.
That is my job. My role.
I think that's also why my mom relies on me so much in facilitating the care of my grandmother.
Here's where my steps start to falter. I feel so helpless, and I don't know how to deal with that. My mom is stressed, and over-reacting (as she is apt to do), and my whole family is looking at me to take charge.
And I'm trying, but what can I do?
Sometimes I think if only I had followed through with becoming a doctor I could be more helpful now. But then, I might have been just as helpless, it's not like I had planned to be a geriatric psychiatrist or neurologist.
My grandmother was admitted to hospital today, for hopefully what will prove to be a short stay. She had a CT scan done when we brought her to the emergency room 2 weeks ago, and it showed some hydrocephalus(sp?).
So now she needs some more tests, and possibly a spinal tap to help drain the excess CSF.
It's funny how I expected to spend the bulk of my life working in a hospital, and how I never minded them, and now I hate hospitals.
Her room stinks of urine.
She seems so small, and distraught by all the strangeness around her.
A different stranger (part of the nursing staff and medical team) keeps coming in to ask the same questions.
I can hear the others in other rooms, and their loved ones, trying to help, trying to bring some routine and normalcy into this abnormal existence.
And I feel totally helpless. I can't do anything when she complains of pain, because she can't tell me where it hurts. I can't tell the doctors what to do, because they're already doing what they can, and what they should. Well, that and they know more than me :)
I don't know how to help reassure my mom or my aunt, so I just snap at them to hold it together. Tell them this is not the time or the place to behave this way. Then I feel guilty. It's not fair, that's how they're handling what's going on, they have a right to their own coping strategies.
So I am left feeling helpless, and I hate it.
2 comments:
I'm really sorry to hear this, Mir. I hope she gets better soon!
Your role here is to do what you can to help, but accept that you're trying to cope with things in your own way too -- just like anybody else's.
I find that the problem with being the person who is in control of everything is that you don't allow yourself to lose that control (in this case, be emotional), because then nobody will be dealing with the situation. Surely you're aware how unhealthy that is for you, right?
So try not to feel guilty if you snap at family members some of the time. It's not any more or less unnatural than how the rest of your family is reacting to things.
Of course, if you don't want to hear my opinion, feel free to tell me to shove it. :)
And if you need someone to be emotional with, feel free to take me up on my offer to be a shoulder to cry on, or a punching bag. Whatever works best for you, 'kay?
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