Tell me about your mother...
March 15, 2011 9:37 PM Subscribe
Help me feel less anxious in general but in this specific situation too.
I have been diagnosed in the past with "depression masked by anxiety" which I think was explained as depression which looks and feels on the surface like anxiety. I was on medication for six months a couple of years ago but once I got past a stressful time in my life I felt I could cope without medication by noticing when I was starting to feel anxious and dealing with the situation.
However I am going through more stressful times right now (this is anonymous because family members know my username, but we had an earthquake recently) and am back to waking at night, feeling tired and rundown and overwhelmed. I know the signs and they are there, but I feel like they will pass in the medium term so not worth the 6-week acclimation period of going back on medication.
Meanwhile, to add to the stress, I have a specific situation with my mother. We have a rough relationship generally which from my end consists of her being angry with me for some reason, refusing to communicate with me, and me finding out through other family members that she's mad at me. My tactic for this is usually to carry on as normal or just stay away until she comes round, refusing to buy into what I see as passive-aggressive behaviour. That's how it's been since I was little, but it's worse in the last 5-10 years. She pretty much excommunicated one of my sisters last year and (generally) still speaks to me and my other two sisters.
Last week my youngest sister found out she has a lump in her breast and she is scheduled for a biopsy. She told our mother, who then told our other sister and my brother's girlfriend. I found out today because my sister sent me a message via facebook, suspecting our mother hadn't told me because she knew (I didn't) that mother was mad at me.
It turns out she's been angry at me for two weeks because I left my facebook account logged in on her laptop when we were staying with her and she couldn't work out how to log herself back in. So I have been calling and leaving voice messages about everyday things, trying to organise to come and spend a weekend with her, but with this growing anxiety when she hasn't called back or returned messages. We live two hours' drive apart.
When I found out today about my sister, I got pretty upset, less about my sister (she's young, it's probably a cyst, she thinks), than because our mother didn't let me know and I found out so much later because of a petty thing like a facebook login! I called and left a message on my parents' phone saying something like, "I don't know if you'll listen to this but I just found out about [sister's] lump and I'm upset that you didn't call and let me know. I heard that you're mad at me about your laptop and I'm sorry, I just wish you could have called and told me. Call me."
I am absolutely hopeless at confrontation and turn into a crying shaking mess when I have to engage in conflict, so I am pretty messed up just from leaving that message. Until I hear back from her (and maybe/probably after I do), I know I'm going to be walking around thinking about possible outcomes with this constant knot of anxiety in my gut, not sleeping, with the occasional shot of adrenaline shooting through my system and making me jittery if I think about it. I have a job that I need to focus on and family to give my attention to, and it's hard to manage those when I feel like this.
What suggestions do you have for dealing with acute anxiety that don't involve medication? And while we're at it, given my situation and whereabouts, any other ideas for stress reduction in the longer term? I would consider therapy/counselling in the long term but it's not going to fix this immediate situation.
I have been diagnosed in the past with "depression masked by anxiety" which I think was explained as depression which looks and feels on the surface like anxiety. I was on medication for six months a couple of years ago but once I got past a stressful time in my life I felt I could cope without medication by noticing when I was starting to feel anxious and dealing with the situation.
However I am going through more stressful times right now (this is anonymous because family members know my username, but we had an earthquake recently) and am back to waking at night, feeling tired and rundown and overwhelmed. I know the signs and they are there, but I feel like they will pass in the medium term so not worth the 6-week acclimation period of going back on medication.
Meanwhile, to add to the stress, I have a specific situation with my mother. We have a rough relationship generally which from my end consists of her being angry with me for some reason, refusing to communicate with me, and me finding out through other family members that she's mad at me. My tactic for this is usually to carry on as normal or just stay away until she comes round, refusing to buy into what I see as passive-aggressive behaviour. That's how it's been since I was little, but it's worse in the last 5-10 years. She pretty much excommunicated one of my sisters last year and (generally) still speaks to me and my other two sisters.
Last week my youngest sister found out she has a lump in her breast and she is scheduled for a biopsy. She told our mother, who then told our other sister and my brother's girlfriend. I found out today because my sister sent me a message via facebook, suspecting our mother hadn't told me because she knew (I didn't) that mother was mad at me.
It turns out she's been angry at me for two weeks because I left my facebook account logged in on her laptop when we were staying with her and she couldn't work out how to log herself back in. So I have been calling and leaving voice messages about everyday things, trying to organise to come and spend a weekend with her, but with this growing anxiety when she hasn't called back or returned messages. We live two hours' drive apart.
When I found out today about my sister, I got pretty upset, less about my sister (she's young, it's probably a cyst, she thinks), than because our mother didn't let me know and I found out so much later because of a petty thing like a facebook login! I called and left a message on my parents' phone saying something like, "I don't know if you'll listen to this but I just found out about [sister's] lump and I'm upset that you didn't call and let me know. I heard that you're mad at me about your laptop and I'm sorry, I just wish you could have called and told me. Call me."
I am absolutely hopeless at confrontation and turn into a crying shaking mess when I have to engage in conflict, so I am pretty messed up just from leaving that message. Until I hear back from her (and maybe/probably after I do), I know I'm going to be walking around thinking about possible outcomes with this constant knot of anxiety in my gut, not sleeping, with the occasional shot of adrenaline shooting through my system and making me jittery if I think about it. I have a job that I need to focus on and family to give my attention to, and it's hard to manage those when I feel like this.
What suggestions do you have for dealing with acute anxiety that don't involve medication? And while we're at it, given my situation and whereabouts, any other ideas for stress reduction in the longer term? I would consider therapy/counselling in the long term but it's not going to fix this immediate situation.
I feel your pain!
Some strategies that kind of work for me in the short term:
Talking with my boyfriend, who's good at making me laugh, especially by making fun of the situation or even of me for getting worked up about it. If you don't have a SO (or have an SO who isn't good at this kind of thing) I bet you have a BFF or someone else you can call who can help cheer you up and get some perspective.
If you can concentrate on it, listening to music that makes you feel all YEAH or a funny TV show
Taking concrete actions or making plans to reduce anxiety. Like asking a Metafilter question!
Thinking "what is the absolute worst case scenario?" Okay, this strategy can definitely backfire every now and then, but often it helps me realize how silly the things I'm worried about are. It helps me put a "bound" on how anxious I feel, I suppose. Usually it ends up being both unlikely and not even that bad. In this case for example: worst case scenario might be "mom gets really furious at me". But it seems like your mom gets really mad at you pretty much all the time no matter what, so you can ask yourself, is this really such an outcome you need to worry about, considering it's kind of the status quo anyway?
Do OTC drugs count as medications? You could try benadryl or valerian to help you get to sleep.
Feel better, anonymous!! The people of the Internet support you!
posted by phoenixy at 12:03 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Some strategies that kind of work for me in the short term:
Talking with my boyfriend, who's good at making me laugh, especially by making fun of the situation or even of me for getting worked up about it. If you don't have a SO (or have an SO who isn't good at this kind of thing) I bet you have a BFF or someone else you can call who can help cheer you up and get some perspective.
If you can concentrate on it, listening to music that makes you feel all YEAH or a funny TV show
Taking concrete actions or making plans to reduce anxiety. Like asking a Metafilter question!
Thinking "what is the absolute worst case scenario?" Okay, this strategy can definitely backfire every now and then, but often it helps me realize how silly the things I'm worried about are. It helps me put a "bound" on how anxious I feel, I suppose. Usually it ends up being both unlikely and not even that bad. In this case for example: worst case scenario might be "mom gets really furious at me". But it seems like your mom gets really mad at you pretty much all the time no matter what, so you can ask yourself, is this really such an outcome you need to worry about, considering it's kind of the status quo anyway?
Do OTC drugs count as medications? You could try benadryl or valerian to help you get to sleep.
Feel better, anonymous!! The people of the Internet support you!
posted by phoenixy at 12:03 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
In the short term:
--Benadryl and valerian are both good possible sleep suggestions. In the daytime you could take sublingual GABA, which is cheap, OTC (get it at a health food store), and immediately takes the edge off of anxiety and emotional arousal without making you dopey the way, say, valium would.
--Deep slow breathing. Make your outbreath longer than the inbreath. When you breathe in, you activate your sympathetic nervous system (which is the fight or flight system), and when you breathe out you activate the parasympathetic nervous system (which is the "rest and digest" system). So a breath that goes in for 7 counts and out for 11 will take your physical anxiety down a few notches.
--I personally like listening to relaxing stuff -- I feel like it helps turn my keyed-up nervous system down a few notches. Like this free download, which is a 12-minute stress reduction guided imagery thingamabob. If you like that kind of stuff, I have other suggestions -- memail me.
--And in the short term, consider this: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Your mother's feelings are not your responsibility.
And if you want an outside opinion, your mother's behavior here is petty and cruel.
---------------------
In the medium and longer term, I think therapy would be a good idea, and probably less of your mother would be a good idea too. From this angle it seems pretty obvious that your anxiety and her vindictive, unpredictable anger are interrelated (i.e. you're going to be more emotionally jumpy if you grew up with someone with an irrational hair-trigger temper).
Turning into a crying/shaking mess when confronted with conflict would be a good thing to address in therapy, too.
Good luck with it, anonymous! We are rooting for you.
posted by hungrytiger at 12:21 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
--Benadryl and valerian are both good possible sleep suggestions. In the daytime you could take sublingual GABA, which is cheap, OTC (get it at a health food store), and immediately takes the edge off of anxiety and emotional arousal without making you dopey the way, say, valium would.
--Deep slow breathing. Make your outbreath longer than the inbreath. When you breathe in, you activate your sympathetic nervous system (which is the fight or flight system), and when you breathe out you activate the parasympathetic nervous system (which is the "rest and digest" system). So a breath that goes in for 7 counts and out for 11 will take your physical anxiety down a few notches.
--I personally like listening to relaxing stuff -- I feel like it helps turn my keyed-up nervous system down a few notches. Like this free download, which is a 12-minute stress reduction guided imagery thingamabob. If you like that kind of stuff, I have other suggestions -- memail me.
--And in the short term, consider this: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Your mother's feelings are not your responsibility.
And if you want an outside opinion, your mother's behavior here is petty and cruel.
---------------------
In the medium and longer term, I think therapy would be a good idea, and probably less of your mother would be a good idea too. From this angle it seems pretty obvious that your anxiety and her vindictive, unpredictable anger are interrelated (i.e. you're going to be more emotionally jumpy if you grew up with someone with an irrational hair-trigger temper).
Turning into a crying/shaking mess when confronted with conflict would be a good thing to address in therapy, too.
Good luck with it, anonymous! We are rooting for you.
posted by hungrytiger at 12:21 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
You know, I can't nth talking to someone rational who cares quite enough to you!
I have a thing I do. Here it is... Before I was married, I went on walks or hikes and listened to podcasts or books on tape about insightful or upbeat topics. That's how I worked through stuff I wanted to process and get off my mind. Often something I heard would make me think differently about my problems and I would pause the audio and work through whatever was on my mind via a different perspective as I walked or hiked. Now that I am married, I talk stuff out with my husband on those walks. Either way, I try to reserve those tougher topics for outside of my home and only for my (near daily) walks or hikes. This works well for me because walking and talking (or walking and listening, then thinking a bit) gets my brain going a different way + I maintain a boundary between the safe space of my home and the dumb stuff that ocassionally bugs me even though it probably shouldn't!
I hope this suggestion helps.
posted by jbenben at 2:27 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
I have a thing I do. Here it is... Before I was married, I went on walks or hikes and listened to podcasts or books on tape about insightful or upbeat topics. That's how I worked through stuff I wanted to process and get off my mind. Often something I heard would make me think differently about my problems and I would pause the audio and work through whatever was on my mind via a different perspective as I walked or hiked. Now that I am married, I talk stuff out with my husband on those walks. Either way, I try to reserve those tougher topics for outside of my home and only for my (near daily) walks or hikes. This works well for me because walking and talking (or walking and listening, then thinking a bit) gets my brain going a different way + I maintain a boundary between the safe space of my home and the dumb stuff that ocassionally bugs me even though it probably shouldn't!
I hope this suggestion helps.
posted by jbenben at 2:27 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
I think you'll feel better about your mother if you spend some time with your sister. All of this should be about her -- she's found a lump and she's getting a biopsy -- and yet, you and your mother have made it about the two of you. That's understandable, because it's so much easier to talk about being mad over a phone call or a Facebook login than it is to talk about being sad and worried for your sister, but it's not really as big an issue and it draws support away from your sister.
posted by Houstonian at 6:28 AM on March 16, 2011
posted by Houstonian at 6:28 AM on March 16, 2011
I'd recommend getting a friend/SO to help be your "Is this reasonable?" checker for your mother's behavior. My reaction to something like that would be more of the "Are you SERIOUS!?" variety than the anxious/upset variety. I know it's difficult, but having someone gut-check you can help you develop a better grip on what to be anxious about (therapists are probably good at this too). Uncertainty is a huge cause of fear and can lead you to catastrophize.
posted by bookdragoness at 7:39 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by bookdragoness at 7:39 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
This will help you feel less anxious----de-triangulate your relationships. Triangulation is when you send messages in your family through other family members, rather than having a direct relationship with each person.
You shouldn't have to hear from anyone else in your family that your mom is mad at you over not logging out of facebook. You detriangulate by 1) thanking your sis for cluing you in but asking her not to do it in the future, 2) going to your mother and asking her why on earth you would have to hear it from your sister rather than from her directly "why would you waste sister's time with it rather than coming to me directly?"
Honestly, the same goes for your sisters diagnosis---unless she specifically asked your mom to tell everyone on her behalf, she should've told you directly. By now, your sisters have probably caught on that mom plays postal carrier only for those family members who aren't on her shit list today.
Build direct relationships with your sisters.
And the next time your mom ignores you calls, simply leave a single message asking her if you've done something that hurt her feelings. Tell her you're like to make it up to her, if you have and you look forward to hearing from her. Don't call again after that. Then, don't ask your sisters if they know what your mom's problem is ---just tell them that you've called and left a message and you hope to hear back from her.
A good accesible book on triangulation in families is Dance of Anger.
posted by vitabellosi at 9:06 AM on March 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
You shouldn't have to hear from anyone else in your family that your mom is mad at you over not logging out of facebook. You detriangulate by 1) thanking your sis for cluing you in but asking her not to do it in the future, 2) going to your mother and asking her why on earth you would have to hear it from your sister rather than from her directly "why would you waste sister's time with it rather than coming to me directly?"
Honestly, the same goes for your sisters diagnosis---unless she specifically asked your mom to tell everyone on her behalf, she should've told you directly. By now, your sisters have probably caught on that mom plays postal carrier only for those family members who aren't on her shit list today.
Build direct relationships with your sisters.
And the next time your mom ignores you calls, simply leave a single message asking her if you've done something that hurt her feelings. Tell her you're like to make it up to her, if you have and you look forward to hearing from her. Don't call again after that. Then, don't ask your sisters if they know what your mom's problem is ---just tell them that you've called and left a message and you hope to hear back from her.
A good accesible book on triangulation in families is Dance of Anger.
posted by vitabellosi at 9:06 AM on March 16, 2011 [3 favorites]
Ooh---the bonus to my suggestion is that it doesnt involve confrontation---although your mother may act like it does because you're disrupting the emotional levers she can pull (which likely reduces her anxiety.
posted by vitabellosi at 9:08 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by vitabellosi at 9:08 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
My mother didn't call and tell me my Grandma was in the hospital (for FIVE DAYS) because "I know you'd worry." (I live 1000 miles away from my entire family and am super close to my Grandma.) I let her know, calmly, that I'd appreciate a call in the future. Don't worry about how she's going to react. You can't predict these things anyway, so don't bother worrying about it. Stay calm and stick up for yourself. (I also suffer from anxiety and depression)
posted by getawaysticks at 9:33 AM on March 16, 2011
posted by getawaysticks at 9:33 AM on March 16, 2011
My response to you last night was glib, so I wanted to follow it up with an explanation. Your mom's refusing to speak to you for two weeks because you didn't log out of Facebook is so extremely out of proportion that I hesitate to characterize it as an overreaction. It's more like a social non sequitur. This, combined with your observation that she's gotten worse over the last 5-10 years, really strongly indicates to me that she's experiencing some degeneration of her cognitive function. There are some good suggestions here that would work with someone that's firing on all cylinders, but my opinion based on your post is that your mom is not, and that the only thing that's going to improve your relationship with her is if she talks to her doctor about this problem. Unless she does that, you need to avoid her as much as possible, because you can't reason with her. Her phone number might as well be the "more anxiety please" hotline. The best thing you can do for your mental health is to refuse to interact with people who abuse you.
posted by milk white peacock at 11:34 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by milk white peacock at 11:34 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]
I liked the advice to stop triangulating your relationships.
I also really really appreciate milk white peacock's perspective that what you describe concerning your mom doesn't sound like someone firing on all cylinders.
Here's my story with that, FWIW.
It always seemed like I would one day have to cease relations with my Mom. She was a tad worse than yours going way back. Something significant happened when I was in my early 20's, and I contacted folks on her side of the family urging them to encourage her to seek REAL help, since she obviously needed significant care. But their dysfunctional family dynamic precluded anyone with a chance of success stepping in and helping her, so that was that.
I felt good because I did try my very best. I've said it many times here on the green that my poor mother has an inner life I would not wish on my worst enemy. I'm happy now in my life and fully recovered from most/all of the emotional damage managing her crazy did to me personally. I did lots of therapy and self-work.
I haven't had any contact with my mother in over 16 years.
You likely don't require such a firm boundary from your mom to get better, but you do need to buffer yourself permanently in some fashion and start working towards permanent recovery.
It's OK for you to get serious about this situation and start behaving in an emotionally responsible way towards yourself. You can only win if you do that. I know from experience.
posted by jbenben at 12:53 PM on March 17, 2011
I also really really appreciate milk white peacock's perspective that what you describe concerning your mom doesn't sound like someone firing on all cylinders.
Here's my story with that, FWIW.
It always seemed like I would one day have to cease relations with my Mom. She was a tad worse than yours going way back. Something significant happened when I was in my early 20's, and I contacted folks on her side of the family urging them to encourage her to seek REAL help, since she obviously needed significant care. But their dysfunctional family dynamic precluded anyone with a chance of success stepping in and helping her, so that was that.
I felt good because I did try my very best. I've said it many times here on the green that my poor mother has an inner life I would not wish on my worst enemy. I'm happy now in my life and fully recovered from most/all of the emotional damage managing her crazy did to me personally. I did lots of therapy and self-work.
I haven't had any contact with my mother in over 16 years.
You likely don't require such a firm boundary from your mom to get better, but you do need to buffer yourself permanently in some fashion and start working towards permanent recovery.
It's OK for you to get serious about this situation and start behaving in an emotionally responsible way towards yourself. You can only win if you do that. I know from experience.
posted by jbenben at 12:53 PM on March 17, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by milk white peacock at 10:08 PM on March 15, 2011 [20 favorites]