Vegetable pad thai

Mum has been having an anxious day today, which means her headache and other symptoms have been accordingly worse. I will be very glad when Thursday’s hospital appointment is over and done, although I am fully aware that mum will then just find something else to worry about.

I have tried in the past to teach mum some of the breathing techniques I have been taught in my many sessions of therapy, but mum invariably either refuses to even try or makes one attempt, says it’s making her feel worse, and abandons the attempt. When we spoke to the mental health practitioner earlier in the week, she told mum to “listen to your daughter!”¹, but needless to say that hasn’t happened.

Today I tried to teach mum to control worrying by recognising when it starts and telling herself “I’m not thinking about this now, I’m thinking about [whatever she’s doing to distract herself]”. The result is that every time mum mentions the hospital appointment, or any of the many other things she’s worrying about, she says snippily “but of course I’m not allowed to talk about that any more”. I have tried to explain that that’s not what I was trying to teach her, but the passive-aggressive comments continue. You would think I would be used to it after 40+ years, but it still gets right on my last nerve, which is uncomfortable enough thanks to the neuropathy.

For dinner I cooked a pad thai, using a Simply Cook kit, and it got that very rare compliment of “it was very nice”. I would be indignant except I agree: it’s one of my favourite of their kits.

Then I ate my last mince pie for the taste test, which will magically appear later today (if I’ve done the scheduling right, anyway), so from now on all mince pies will be for personal pleasure only. I think that it’s customary to say after doing this sort of taste test that “I won’t want another one for a while”, but I’m actually planning on sneaking another one this evening, to go with my cup of coffee.

I might not be a great teacher of anti-anxiety techniques, but I’m verging on world class for enjoying mince pies.

1. I call myself mum’s daughter despite being non-binary, firstly because I can’t expect mum to remember my changed gender identity, and secondly because I have yet to find a gender-neutral alternative that doesn’t make me sound like an alien. Offspring, for example. 👽️ ↩︎