Party

We had my nephews graduation party last night.

As a family, we also celebrated my son's graduation. It was nice of my sister to include my son. (although, it would have been nice if she'd have told me. My husband would have come. He didn't want to go into a crowd of people he didn't know, but he would have done so for his son.)

Mom has diabetes and celiac spru. A sign of her declining social skills ... when she was diagnosed with celiac a few years ago, she'd kind of pout at family functions that she could not enjoy the foods that we all did. As time has gone by, she's made a bigger deal of this issue.

Last night, she humiliated my sister by going around the kitchen in a sing song voice going 'naughty naughty I can't have this! torture your mommy!'

Then, when the cheese cake came out, she went around and told everyone, including the little 6 year old kids that her daughters obviously enjoyed watching her not be allowed to eat "isn't that mean? I bet you'd never be a mean little girl like that!"

My sister tried to reign her in without humiliating her. In the end, it brought less attention to let her do her thing than to say something. The more she tried to say something, the more my mom protested it's unfairness. "I'm a human too! My feelings should be taken into account"

My father, with his new wife sat there like he was embarrassed to have ever been associated with her. That, just infuriated me. How dare he get on his high horse and declare someone that he knew to once be so intelligent and not only that he was married to, but he was proud to consider a collegue (as special education teachers ..he used to brag about his ex wife's accomplishements in the field) but now, as both of his ex wife's have declined he just washes his hands of them and acts as if he never knew them. Where does he think his children came from?

(my step mother of 25 years is mentally ill with paranoid schizophrenia, but he hardly acknowleges that he was married to her. When pictures of the florida fires were mentioned, my sister offered to show them to me ...they are within blocks of my brothers house, I said "That's ok, Jeani sent them to me." Dad said "who?"

gee Dad .. Jeani ... you were married to her for TWENTY FIVE YEARS!!!!!

I wonder if his current wife realizes how disposable wives are to him. )

I don't have a patient personality. I have can be very patient with children ...adults don't tend to get my patients. Learning to give my mom the patience that I gave my kids is really difficult.

The reality is, she needs the same kind of psychological 'parenting' that I gave my youngest son ... with his auditory processing disorder and his OCD ... that is the exact kind of issues that she is facing. She can't find words when she needs them. She gets stuck on issues and can't get off of them, she doesn't have the social skills any more to bring herself out of them and she cannot read people to understand what she is doing.

It is the same thing as when Benjamin would call a refridgerator a microwave and a washing machine a fence and the fence a dog. I grew to know exactly what he was referring to, and when he said he wanted to get milk out of the microwave, I'd simply say "ok". People would look at me like I was insane as he would walk to the fridge and get it, but he and I both knew what he meant. He'd say that the fence needed to go for a walk and I'd let him put the toilet (leash) on the fence (dog) and go for a walk.

I knew what he meant ... he spoke in what we called "Benjaminese" When the first of the second trilogy of the Star Wars movies came out, we went into shock as Jar Jar Binks came onto screen and started speaking in very clear "Benjaminese" We were the only ones in the theater not struggling to interpret the character on the first viewing!

It took absolutely no patience for me to deal with him. That was simply how he was. So why can't I transfer that same feeling and finese with my mom? Why do I fight this so badly?

There is also a part of me that wants badly .. to use some of the same therapeutic modalities that we used with Benjamin ... but Mom would first have to acknowlege that she hasn't always been this way, that it is more than ADHD ... and that there might be something there that needed therapeutic modalities.