Cheese and onion rolls, crispy potato slices, salad; caramel and chocolate bun
This morning I woke from a dream about a dying cat being visited by her two warring kittens, with a head full of all the pets I have lost over the years. And the thought that feline behaviour doesn’t work like that, which tells you a fair amount about how my mind works!
Mum woke up irritable and, once again, refused to get up, forcing me to walk on eggshells around the house until she got up at lunchtime. If you’re not sure what ‘walking on eggshells’ looks like, it’s wanting a shower but opting not to have one to avoid the resulting snide comments.
It’s drinking lukewarm water because getting either ice or coffee might make noise, and that would draw mum out to investigate what I’m doing and criticise me for doing it.
It’s not eating, even though that’s my fastest way to a return trip to hospital, because my stomach is so tied in knots from stress that the thought of food is physically repulsive.
Eventually mum deigned to get up, and offered to make me a cup of coffee. Unfortunately she quickly decided she couldn’t remember how to make a cup of coffee, and I ended up making hot drinks for us both. It was one of those times when cognitive decline and manipulation clashed, and left me doing all the work. Again.
This afternoon mum had her first appointment with the area’s mental health team. Mum spent the 90 minutes leading up to the appointment – which I told her about far too early, as I misremembered the appointment time – panicking. She paced around, told me she didn’t want to do it and that she would wet herself if I insisted, repeatedly asked me to assure her I wouldn’t leave her, and generally drove me crazy.
I knew at that point that the appointment was going to be a disaster, and it was. Mum waffled, looped, failed to understand questions, apologised, looked to me for answers, and generally stretched out what was meant to be a 30 minute appointment to 45 minutes. And that was just to get through the initial screening questions – we never even got to the actual planned content of the appointment.
Nonetheless, they’re going ahead with the next appointment, but are going to send the screening questions to me for me to struggle through them with mum instead. Gee, thanks. 🫤
The only real positive was mum’s reaction to the screening question of whether she had ever thought of ending her life: a horrified “no, of course not!” That means that next time she threatens her own life in response to me doing something she doesn’t like, I’ll know she doesn’t mean it. I strongly suspected that was the case, but it’s good to know for sure.
After all that, I didn’t have much energy to cook dinner, so just shoved some of mum’s favourite crispy potato slices on an oven tray, and added some posh cheese and onion rolls for the last 10 minutes. Mum greeted the sight of the sizzling oven tray with unusual enthusiasm, and cleared her plate.
Then we had Tesco Rolled and Loaded Caramel and Chocolate Buns. They are seriously sweet, being both filled and topped with caramel sauce, but definitely tasty. Mum drowned hers in cream, which is fine: at least she didn’t pour the cream over the cheese and onion rolls.
I am hoping that mum goes out with Lady Friday tomorrow afternoon and gives me a chance to chase up a couple of lettings agents who are yet to get back to me. That lettings agents in the 21st century don’t accept emails and insist on doing all business by phone is bewildering to me, not to mention frustrating as making phone calls is something else I can’t do lest mum overhear and overreact to the concept of me talking to another human being.
Those eggshells are safe around me. 🙄
