Labyrinth of the Mind

This weekend has been weird. I think I discovered that sometimes I don’t like being around my mom because we end up talking about her hospital stay last year. It’s coming up to a year since it happened so I understand, but I feel like we never stopped talking about it. My brain just wants a rest…a minute where I am not thinking about how close my mom came to death.

I have this irrational fear that I am actually still in the hospital room. That I fell asleep and I am dreaming this life where my mom has made so much progress so quick. Like this last year of my life has all been a dream and I am going to wake up and still be sitting beside her bed, listening to the beeping of the machines that are essentially keeping her alive.

Everyone tells me this is real life, this is all happening in the now, but I keep thinking about the movies and stories. Have you ever heard of the lamp story? It’s where this guy is living this happy life with a wife and kids but one day he notices something odd about a lamp. He studies and ends up pushing his wife and kids away because he becomes so obsessed with this lamp. He knows something isn’t right. Then it clicks that none of it is real and his reality shatters. He wakes up and it is years before when he suffered an injury and the life he thought he was living was just a dream.

I know it is just a story. Could it really happen? And if this wasn’t real, wouldn’t the people tell me this is real to keep the dream going?

I am grounded in reality and I know the chances of any of that being real is very low….though not impossible. I feel here, like this is real life. It’s just hard because thinking back to the things I watched my mom go through, I feel like I am there watching it all happen again and again.

I feel like I should be over this already. Like I should be past the trauma and moving on with my life. I feel like I moved on faster after my dad passed away. My mom lived…why is it still sticking with me? Why is it when I look at my mom all I can see is how close I came to losing her? I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want to think about it. I want to pretend it never happened.

How long does it take to get over this? I just don’t understand why it is sticking to my brain like cold oatmeal sticks to a bowl. My mom got to forget the two and half months she was in the hospital and I am grateful for that. I don’t want her to remember. Sometimes I feel like I can’t let go of the memories. Like, if I forget how awful it is, the world is going to remind me.

I just want to feel okay. I want to be able to enjoy life. I feel like if I stand my ground and tell my mom I can’t do all these things with her, I can’t be her sidekick for the rest of her life…It will be my fault she is upset. I will be my fault if something happens to her. I somehow put it on my own shoulders to keep my mom happy.

What if my purpose in life was to keep my mom company? What if that is why I never got married and had kids. Maybe that is why I never got much of a life of my own, because my only purpose was to be there for her. What if that is all I am good for?

My brain is such a mess. I have no idea how to even rope in all these thoughts and deal with them. It’s a good thing I have a therapist.