Day 097 – Separation Anxiety

Welcome to Day 97!

My brother-in-law goes home today.  He’s the first of our guests to leave and marks the beginning of the life getting back to normal.  His departure also triggers the early signs of separation anxiety in my mother.

You see whenever my mother has visited or if I’ve visited my mother towards the end of the visit, she begins to act like someone who has missed out on a lot of sleep.  There’s the short fuse, easily lured into a fight she has to win (this would probably be her need to control a situation she would like to retain). 

Signs were only minor today because her day was occupied by the new gadget the family chipped in to buy her – an Apple watch.  My mother is quite an active 80-year-old and at times concentrates on multiple activities at once.  She also suffers from asthma.  All of these things have my sister and I worried for her safety, particularly if she falls somewhere and she is unable to get help.  The watch was purchased to capture health and give us peace of mind. 

With the new watch my mother’s time was occupied in the setting up and the usual separation habits took a back seat.  Unless you count the moments when the watch required setting up.  Normally, quite tech savvy the separation anxiety also manifests in wanting my undivided attention.  Setting up and learning the new device provided an avenue to do this. 

At night fall, the stress showed again, when my nephew who during school days goes to bed early but on vacations gets an additional hour before heading to bed.  Because our mother wants to have grown up time with my sister and me and wants to squeeze in as much time with us as possible before she has to catch her flight tomorrow.  Counter to her desire she mostly manifests a situation where neither of us want to spend any additional time dealing with her before he sets off.  After she’s gone, we tend to breathe a sigh of relief.

I guess in some ways causing the fight, puts her in control of the situation but has the reverse desired effect. It’s like the pre-emptive strike concept, except unconsciously done. There was a guy I once worked with in government.  The government had changed in the State and the new government didn’t believe in the Government providing public services.  He performed a ruthless cull of the public service and it was no secret the loss of jobs was on the agenda and quickly. 

There was a guy, who I’ll call Jim – not his real name – decided the tension of waiting to know whether he was being let go was greater than his ability to cope with it, decided to go on his own terms and resigned.  Later I found out due to a role change, he would have been able to stay, just re-assigned.  Fortunately for Jim, he was able to get another job elsewhere.  Possibly meant to be, the new job was closer to home.

My mother does Jim’s thing with the pre-emptive strike by unwittingly praying on my sister’s insecurities as a mother.  She began interfering with the parenting and wanted her grandson to go to bed at “school day” times.  This caused a rift between my mother, my sister and my nephew (fortunately, my brother-in-law had left).   Luckily, my sister was awake to the signs and was able to resist biting back.  My nephew, via several delay strategies managed to eke out the rest of his additional vacation hour and wound up going to bed at the vacation time bed-line (like a deadline but for bedtime).

Let’s see what the cards have to say!