Hi anita

I hope you’ll feel better soon. Omicron is spreading like wildfire here too. But as you said people are recovering well.

Everything I’ve written is from my perspective of what I want to take care of. I don’t even want to be the caretaker. I just want her to have one. What I mean to my mom is worse than what you’ve written.

What I know I am to my mother or mean to is her personal diary where she filled pages with vitriol and her stresses since I was 10 -11. I don’t have memories before that. We had to be grateful to her for her sacrificies. I honestly don’t know what those are. What I really mean to her is I am her safety net. Goes beyond what you’ve described. It’s worse. She’ll just step aside and have us fight her fights. She is the biggest victim. Anytime we used to go to my maternal grandmother’s place, they used to tell me to take care of my mom. From very early on. What can a 10 year old do? They were telling us to be more mature and not trouble her. We were “troubling her” by being what we were, kids. So even now, what I mean to my mom is a burden. She used to project my father onto me. I started worrying that I will hurt her from a very young age. Now I remember it is because she used to express with her words and actions that we were troubling her. And we used to hate our dad for causing us pain, we didn’t want to add to hers. She used that to say don’t do this or that, you will turn out to be like him. I am really scared of turning into my father and she used that against me. Everyone around us used to call us docile. We were just kids being kids. We had to be the elders. I am an elder to her. From a very young age both her and the extended family has instilled guilt in us. I have expressed to her before that I am worried about leaving her and getting married. She has never tried to assure me that they will be ok. I am expected to worry about her.

So, if I had to paraphrase yes – live-in home caretaker with the ability to drive her to the hospital and such? I don’t drive though, take her by cab.

I remembered something else, when I used to be down or depressed around 14-15 she used to tell me she was already tired of dealing with my father and just can’t deal with it if we turn out like him as well. I think that’s where the fear comes from. She essentially told me I was not normal and she didn’t want to deal with it.

Another time, I was really depressed and lying down in bed for days and my dad started praying for me. My mom is scared when he gets prayerful as that means he is really anxious and may spiral down, so she came yelling to my room saying my dad will get worse if I lie down. I had to get up immediately. We always had to be her foot soldiers for dealing with my dad. Worry about him. Why did I have to worry about him?

Girija