aamusedinatx | May. 10th, 2006

There's been some back chat among me and the boys about distortion filters. Mostly the context has been what we say and how our mothers hear something entirely different. We have no control over this filter, but its existence and evidence in our relationship to our parent drive us all crazy in our unique ways.

For Dr. Lust, mentioning off hand that he hopes to do A, B, or C, suddenly gives his mother marching orders to discuss this as fact with other people and organize and make it happen, because...that's what she does.

For the Enigma, mentioning to his mother that life is good and he's well except for a slight cough left over from a cold, turns into a whisper campaign through his entire family in the North of England. "He has a cough" is uttered with the same weight and fearful seriousness as "he has cancer," because...that's what she does.

For me, a call with my mother to discuss her and my father's most recent doctor visits and to catch her up with mine contained a bumble on my part. In discussing my new prescriptions apparently I listed the NUMBER of scripts I was picking up. I stopped at the cholesterol meds and the beta blocker for my BP. "What was the other one?" she asked. My mother is shrewed; crazy, but shrewed. I hemmed and hawed then said it was a new SSRI (figuring she probably didn't know what that was.) Immediately I got the disapproving mothering tone. "Why do they think you need that? Don't they know what that stuff does?" Now that the cat was out of the bag I attacked with honesty.

"Mother, I'm not crazy, I'm just tightly wound. I've got to get these panic attacks under control, this is the best way. I've been on some form of anti-anxiety medication since 1998, practically. This is just a newer one."

She backed off a bit, muttering...because that's what she does.

Two hours later my phone rings and its my sister. "Why does our mother think you're suicidal?"

After I stopped laughing I said "Because our mother's crazy and I'm not."

"That's a good answer."

I explained the phone call and my confession regarding the Celexa. I could hear my sister roll her eyes on the phone (that takes talent to be so expressive, but my sister is like that).

And so once again the distortion filter takes hold because well my mother...that's what she does.