My confused heart, and my sore throat
Looks like burning the midnight oil one too many times has finally taken a toll on me. This morning, I woke up and discovered that I couldn’t talk without hurting my throat! I’m coughing and my nose is running like a tapSo for the rest of the day, I get to discover how it feels like to be a mute, relying on sign language and funny facial gestures. Luckily, I can still type……
Things at home have taken an unexpected, but welcomed change. For some bizarre reason, my mother seems to have just toned down, just like that. After that final outburst on Sunday, when I warned her clearly that it’s the hospital for her if she doesn’t behave, she just seemed to cool it.
From Monday till today, I have pretty much minded my own business. I didn’t bother her, and surprisingly, she didn’t bother me either. But of course, I can really totally not bother about her. I did buy her dinner for these few days, and she said thank you! No complaining, no fussing, no fighting. When I came back yesterday evening, she was watching TV! The TV had not been switched on for the entire month or so, ever since she went into her relapse. I sometimes like to refer to the TV as the ‘relapse indicator’, because I notice whenever she starts going into one of her episodes, the first thing she does is stop watching her regular hokkien dramas. She follows the episodes religiously when she is ok, and when she suddenly takes no interest in it, I know her mind is elsewhere.
To be honest, I don’t quite know what gotten into her. I don’t quite understand how just as suddenly as her relapse came; when she heard that my father wanted to stay here, it has seemingly just went off like that, though it may be a little too early to judge. But a lot of that fire, that battling spirit of hers seemed to die down after she got her wish of going off. I was against it, but my brother allowed it. So she travelled up north, and 6 hours later, she came back. When she came back, she just seemed less angry, less combative. What more, none of us have been supervising her medication.
Which again leads me to question the effectiveness, or the even the use of these medications. They are supposed to calm the patient down, to put them back in the right state of mind. But for the 2 weeks of hell that I suffered with her, I gave her medicine every single day, though it was just so difficult so many times. But I did it with the ultimate belief that it would work, that once the medication took hold of her, my mother would return to normal. But it never happened. In fact, the more I forced it on her, the more she seemed to rebel, the more restless and desperate she became. To the point where she tried to physically force her way out of the house.
So when we finally admitted defeat, and we let her go, surrendering her medication and giving her a free will to do as she likes, she went off and did her thing, scratched her itch, and came back, and then she was calm again, over the course of 3 days; 3 days of unsupervised medication, 3 days of freedom for her to do as she wished. That compared to 14 days of closely monitored supervision, 14 days of total control. What does this all mean? I am no psychiatrist; and even they seem to give contradicting advice. My girlfriend has always been for proper hospital treatment; after all, she is a nurse. But various psychiatrists have told us that it is not as simple as just prepping her up with drugs and expect her to behave normally. The fact is, she is not normal. The drugs control the symptoms, but they don’t cure the illness!
After all that has happened, I am forced to re-examine myself, to wonder if I have been right in my convictions, if I have been right in my beliefs. My brothers words come back to haunt me. In our argument about my mother he said to me “You are trying to take matters into your own hands, you are trying to take control over the matter.” Duh! Amen! I though, he finally gets it. We need to take control of matters and not leave it to chance! But he continued “When you try to control everything, you end up loosing control.”….. Of course, when he said that I though it was a bowl of crap. I didn’t believe that. If God wanted us to surrender and let things happen in themselves without effort on our part, he wouldn’t have given us a brain, he wouldn’t have given us free will, and we would have no conscious will to act.
But now, when things seem to have taken a step forward, not because I did something, but because I gave up and allowed things to just take their course, I am forced to question the truth of my beliefs… are we just supposed to sing ‘que sera sera, whatever will be will be’? Feeling frustrated, I went to the library, and of all books, I stumbled upon a book by Andrew Matthews entitled Happiness in a Nutshell…… the appearance of the book was a little strange… What are the chances of that? To stumble upon a book about happiness when you least expect it.
So I took cute little book, with its funny illustrations and gave it a read. So many of the things said touched a nerve. Happiness is a daily decision, it seems. I have been unhappy for the past month, because I allowed it to do so. But then again, no one in their right mind could be happy when their mother is sick can they? Pain and suffering are as much a part of life as happiness and joy are. But a few things I read stuck with me, which really forces me to search myself.
When your body hurts, pain reminds you to take a rest, or maybe to change your shoes or find a better way. When your mind hurts, pain reminds you to quit worrying or be more forgiving, or to think a different way.
The universe is always nudging us with gentle signals. When we miss the signals, it nudges us with a sledgehammer. Growth is most painful when we resist it.
Pain, I have suffered this past month; mental anguish and emotional agony. Things happened in a way I had no way of predicting. But what am I supposed to learn from all these? My heart ached, but I still do not see the lesson that’s supposed to come with it. What am I supposed to do about my mother? How should I approach the matter? Should I try to assume control and take matters into my hands the next time it happens? Or should have a freer attitude to the matter and let matters work themselves out, like what my brother believes? Is her medication the true problem? Is it the solution? Isn’t silence also a word? Isn’t inaction also an act? Are we not all the sum of our choice? I have no answers, only lots of questions.
My heart is confused... and the sore throat isnt helping either
posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 2:18 pm
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