The Conspiracy Theory

Most of ya'll who've been around here a while know that Ma is partially disabled. She spends most of her time in her room, she rarely leaves the house and is obsessed with the police scanner. Oh yeah and there is absolutely nothing that I can do right to please her, nor have I ever produced anything of value, other than the Amazon (who does absolutely no wrong in her eyes), in all of my 41 years.

Now Ma has always been a little different, a state I blame on one or two particularly traumatic experiences involving my childhood and my father, the facts of which aren't important. She's had a few setbacks in the past couple of years, losing a job she loved which resulted in a family feud between her and Aunt Mowsalot, her baby sister whom she claimed could do no wrong. She also fell a couple of years ago, on Valentine's Day and after a visit to the ER, several visits to the doctor at the Hee-Haw clinic and finally a visit to a psychiatrist, seven weeks after her fall they discovered that her shoulder wasn't dislocated after all, it was broken in the joint and had already started healing, in the wrong position. Surgery was deemed too risky with her other health problems, so now she can't use her right arm.

Lord help us all when she falls. I've wallered her all over the bedroom on more than one occasion trying to get her out of the floor with one good arm, two bad knees and both our bellies in the way. I'll just let ya'll ponder that a moment and try to visualize the mechanics involved.

Anywho, now Ma takes anti depressants which she supplements with Benadryl and as a result she sleeps alot and when she's awake she rarely bothers to even get up. I've stopped taking her things, making her get up to at least come get her mail or fetch her own food.

The conspiracy theory stems from three things, Ma's gradually deteriorating hearing, her chronic nosiness and her vivid imagination. She lays in bed and tries to listen to my conversations, making up her own conclusions for the parts she doesn't hear clearly. She does the same thing with the police scanner, often taking the bits and pieces she hears, filling in the blanks herself and voila! A traffic stop involving someone's granny becomes a meth lab bust where they had to call social services to come get six youngins who were all in diapers and were being fed corn liquor in their baby bottles.

She started confronting me with her fears about a year ago. She'd hear one side of a conversation between me and the Amazon while she was away at college and draw her own conclusions. I'm not positive but I think part of it has stemmed from conversations she's had with Aunt Mowsalot to, the two of them sitting around on the phone trying to second guess what the rest of the world is doing.

About two weeks ago, me and the Amazon were in the kitchen putting groceries away when Ma came in and exclaimed that she knew what the two of us had been whispering about, so we'd might as well just go ahead and admit it. I had explained to her on numerous occasions, as calmly as I could muster, that we weren't scheming behind her back and it hurt my feelings that she'd even say such a thing and at this point, I was getting tired of defending myself.

I mumbled something about not having any patience for her "game" left and walked off. About an hour later she came in to the kitchen, sat down and proceeded to tell me that she knew what I had planned and I could just forget it, that she had the land and house "fixed" so that I couldn't sell it and blah blah blah.. on and on.. She never elaborates on exactly what this "plan" is, only that I have one and it involves forcing her to do something against her will.

I lost it. I mean, I live here when I don't want to because I know it's where she and the Amazon want to be, and yeah, I guess it's starting to grow on me a little. I rarely really complain about it, I go to work, I do my best to pay the bills and make sure she doesn't run out of Cokes and has the other basic things she needs. I'm not the best housekeeper, I'll admit, but I do try. I never go to the store that I don't make sure she doesn't need anything first, I stay close by most of the time. I buy the brands and items that she insists on when I do the shopping, still trying to get her approval after all these years. And that's all fine. It's my choice, no one's made me do these things.

But you can see why I'd get a little pissy when constantly being accused of doing something under handed. So I told her what I thought, how I felt. I wasn't calm about it. I wasn't even nice. I don't honestly know if she's clinically paranoid or just hateful and I felt a bit guilty after I lost my cool.

Do ya'll wanna know what she said? After I had my little nuclear meltdown, she calmly looked me in the eye and said, "Hunny, I think you need to see a doctor, I think you've got anger issues."

Gawd. Who wouldn't?

*Sigh*

Say it with me now, "Bless her heart."