Why All the Questions? Pretending It’s Not Paranoia

About once or twice a week I get a question from my mother, either via phone call or text message. This may not seem like a lot, except that the question is the same each time and it has me shook. These questions make me wonder if it is paranoia or dementia that is motivating her to ask me the same question every time?

Mental illness can go undiagnosed for a long time. Especially if the symptoms are being actively ignored. The stigma of mental health issues in the Hispanic/Latino household is a real thing. I have experienced first hand the lengths my family will go to pretend it is not a thing. They would rather die first than admit that they need mental health assistance.

Why all the questions?

Well, we have a house down in Guatemala. And every week she asks me if I am getting into business dealings with random people from Guatemala. Usually some random person of her acquaintance. She will insist that I not take phone calls from them.

I haven’t gotten any, but that’s not reassurance enough. She is convinced (which I find insulting) that I will sign away my rights to that property somehow because apparently I am easily fooled. Maybe its not paranoia. Maybe it’s projection.

In either case, I can’t convince her that it is never going to happen. The next week it will be another text. This time the person under suspicion is one of her sisters, or her brother, or my estranged father. Or the neighbor across the street from the house in Guatemala.

Either way, the conversation goes down the same path. That I can’t trust anyone. That someone is out to get me, because either me or my children are the weak links in the chain and somehow we will be used to steal her legacy from her.

Happy to disappoint

Well, sorry to disappoint you yet again woman. I barely talk to you. What the fuck makes you think I am going to entertain the PHONE CALL from another family member (estranged or otherwise) to discuss business that is not mine?

I wish the voices in her head would find someone else to besmirch with their false accusations. I already have a strained relationship with my mother. We are what I consider reluctantly close. She likes to think we are close, I am reluctant to boot her entirely because I have issues. But her undiagnosed mental health issues are causing me undue stress.

Waiting for the other show to drop

I feel like she is a ticking time bomb. One day she will crack and then I will have to deal with her and my brother.

Why is my brother lumped into that mess? Because she lives with him, and he is much closer to her than I am. I am imagining that her decline will cause him to break down too. God forbid.