There's something about Mama

She's not the way she used to be. I know because it's been manifesting itsel physically: she's thin, she's puyat, she always looks tired. She always looks sad. I can also feel it emotionally. She seems cold and withdrawn. She's usually quiet and seems to be looking far away all the time. But then there are the angry, violent outbursts for no reason. She'll shout and she'll swear. She has no patience. She has no trust for anything anybody is doing.

This is what happened last Saturday, my siblings recounted to me last night, while I was out. My titas came for a visit because it was Monique's birthday. They brought food for cooking when previously the family was just expecting to order out. So all the siblings jumped in to help prepare and help out in the kitchen but Mama was bustling around, criticizing everyone's work, shouting at the top of her voice that everything was so disorderly and wrong, nit-picking at everything, calling them "walang silbi" while the titas were there. It was as if she was venting, taking out her anger about something and someone else on them.

It's been like this for some time now. She always feels like she's being taken for granted. She feels like she's so kawawa and not understood. She feels alone. I don't understand why she feels this way, when in fact we try to reach out to her and ask her how she is. I personally do that. But sometimes when I do, I feel that she gets offended. When I ask her about her work and how she is, she says she's rather not talk about it. She keeps quiet and shuts me out.

Her reason: she doesn't want to bother me further with her problems. But isn't that what a family does? Share. Everything. And by sharing, we find some wisdom in simple suggestions. Or relief by simply telling other people. But she doesn't want that. She keeps it to herself, and she suffers with it. I think this is another manifestation of her can't let go attitude. She won't delegate.

I personally feel she doesn't want to listen to our suggstions. :( I don't know why--maybe it's because she thinks she should be in control? I think she thinks we think she's lost control, and therefore has lost authority. That we don't need her. In fact, she blurted out yesterday morning that we're all taking her for granted. She said it like it was a fact. And that remark has really been bothering me.

I wonder now if she's depressed. She's exhibiting almost the same symptoms I was showing when I was depressed. But I don't know how to approach it. I don't know how to tell her that without offending her further. I've been thinking about talking to her, and having somebody there who was a third party, someone from outside. But I don't know whom to talk to.

Maybe I should tell the sibs about my thoughts. Maybe they'll have some suggestions. I actually dread going home there now. It's like the whole place is zapping my energy. In fact, it doesn't feel like home so much anymore.