Breathe....come up for air and breathe

This week has been a rough one. I have been over to Mom's place 5 times to fix her television. She has a digital tuner and keeps mixing up the TV remote with the digital remote. Rescanning her channels seems to do the trick. At one point, she had it so messed up, I had to ask Pamela to come over and help me because I had done all I could do with the digital tuner and still couldn't bring back the channels. It seems clear that Mom is not going to be able to relearn this technology that she has been successfully using for about a year. I don't know if she is losing cognitive abilities or has just figured out that I will come over if she messes it up.

I have to say that my ability to be patient has been pretty thin this week. I come home each time overwhelmed and angry. I feel awful for getting so irritated at her helplessness. She won't take her garbage out because she is afraid to go to the garage in her building by herself. She is the most fearful, limited person I have ever encountered. She has lived in a cocoon all her life...limited in her experience, living through the family members around her. Now that Dad is gone, her major window to the world is gone. She tries to get me to step into his 24/7 shoes but I just can't get sucked into that role.

Today, I bought her a nice salad and dropped it off. Again, the TV needed to be fixed ....again I fixed it and explained it. I feel like I am losing my mind ...breathe....just breathe...get her settled and go. But not before she wanted to know what I was doing today. She is so invasive...I have taken to not telling her much about my life because she often twists the information and is verbally abusive. If she doesn't get her way, she often verbally attacks my home life. She also told me she needed to go to several different places next Thursday. I told her I could not commit to it until I knew what was happening with my job search. It just drives me crazy that she never consults me ...just tells me what she wants and when she wants to do it.

Breathe....just breathe ...get to the car...go home to my life....eat lunch... ....breathe deeply....take a long nap....breathe deeply.

Start over tomorrow.