I learned a lesson today. Whether mom is sick with cancer or a common cold, whether she lives an hour away from me or right next door, whether I see her every day or only once in a while, she is still very much present in my life. I’m glad to report that at the time of this writing, she has beaten the cancer she had but is currently dealing with the onset of a cold that my stepfather has which she has caught. The reason I bring all of this up, as it relates to her health, ETC is because there was a time last year when she had the cancer that I never thought I would see her again. We were all very concerned following her diagnosis last year. During this time, I could not eat, sleep, think or live in general without stress no matter what I did to try and ease my stress and no matter how much time I spent with friends. Little did I know at the time that she would be well enough to engage in a conversation of “The Way Jeff Lives Life vs. The Way Mom Wants Him To Live Life.” These were creative arguments we used to have consisting of me coming clean about living life a certain way only to have mom get annoyed and sometimes even angry over my admission to how I live it. A playful but strict argument would result over the circumstances which lead me to live the way I was, normally after mom has suggested other ways to live otherwise with me complaining about some infraction being the cause of why I cannot live in that way. This could be because of a rule effecting that way of living, some type of situation making it impossible for me follow her rule, ETC. Most of these situations are blamed on other people for my part as I complain that they don’t listen to me or that I have tried unsuccessfully to convince them to do it her way with them being unable to for some reason. This usually ends with me calling them stupid and requesting that mom herself talk to those people to validate their reasoning or to get them to change their ways claiming that previous attempts by me to do it have gotten me nowhere. Unfortunately, this never ends well and almost always results in anger. As I am seen to be afraid of how mom will react if I got angry, I will annoyingly apologize and say that “I will take care of (insert situation right now,) with mom threatening even worse anger if I’m rude to that person when addressing the issue.

Although most times, I do not follow through with this, if mom and I have made up or if the situation was changed to her liking, ETC, I felt it was necessary for me to get the word out on this particular occasion being that mom was angry at me. After trying unsuccessfully to get her to call and discuss the situation with them, (as I had claimed that despite me previously telling them, they did not listen to me,) I opted to do it myself when mom claimed that she would only vouch for me if I was a baby or a little boy. With that in mind, I called the staff to address the situation.

The situation is that for as long as I’ve lived here, there’s been an ongoing feud between mom and I about where my meals should be eaten. Meals are prepared in the kitchen downstairs where there are two tables set up as well as a tv for clients to watch, there are some board/card games to play as well as arts and crafts supplies. Now I made a rule when I left my previous house that I would never make any other friends or talk to anyone else as much as I do to Chris and the girls as I believed that making new friends wouldn’t be fair to Chris as he would feel he’s not good enough. Also, I’m what most people would refer to as an introvert and to my knowledge, this area of the house was designed for people who care about others and want to be social. For this reason, I have chose to eat upstairs rather than downstairs as I like my privacy. Staff here are ok with this but mom, not so much and from the first week I’ve lived here until now, (I’ve lived here almost four years at the time of this writing,) meal times have been stressful with the constant argument between mom and I which consists of, “I don’t want to go down today as I don’t feel well,/I’m too tired ETC, with mom arguing back and saying, “Well, you go out to restaurants, if you can go to restaurants, why can’t you go downstairs/if you don’t go downstairs you won’t be able to go to restaurants, ETC. The arguments would basically follow this format with me trying multiple times to find out what mom believes is so great about me going down there and believing it’s because she wants me to be social. When faced with this belief, I will argue that I don’t care/give an (insert swear word which would fit the end to this phrase, “f” word or shit, damn,) about other clients. I would end by saying that if they want to do (insert something,) I don’t care, sometimes I will even go as far as to call them idiots to emphasize how little I care about them, ETC. When I do go downstairs to eat, I make a habit of remaining down there long enough to finish eating while refusing to acknowledge other clients. During this time, I will normally only address staff in terms of my needs and that’s it. When a vacant apartment was turned into a space for clients to have alone time/visit with family, ETC, I make it a point to have it booked especially when Chris is over. This is seen as a compromise to the rule that mom made as this room is downstairs. In other words, I’m still going downstairs but I’m not eating with the other clients. Other times, I will choose to eat during off peak hours when there are less clients out there. This is usually before meal times and at points where meals are not served. There have been times when things have happened while I was downstairs where I was forced to stay down there. This could be when the elevator breaks down or the power goes out, ETC. When mom is made aware of this occurrence, I complain to her that (insert problem, elevator breaking down, ETC,) is the real reason why I don’t like to go downstairs as I can’t get back upstairs and now I’m stuck with these idiots/morons, (meaning other clients,) and that I would not be stuck down there if I was allowed to eat in my room. The incident would have occurred but at least I would have been in my room. Unfortunately, this has not changed her mind in terms of the situation. Also, when addressing needs should they come up in these circumstances, I’m more demanding and even less patient than I would be under normal circumstances. If I am told to wait, I will find an excuse to be served right away, (bus to come soon, something needing to be done right away that can’t wait,) ETC. I will also find myself getting angry upon trying to obtain a timeline as to when the problem should be fixed, (elevator/power outage,) if the response from staff isn’t definitive and I’m told that they don’t know exactly how long it will be or if they say that they must wait for the right person to show up to fix it and that it could take a while, ETC. The issue with staff where I was more demanding and less patient only happened once since I’ve been here though.

The only time mom is ok with me eating upstairs is if something happens which results in all clients not being able to go downstairs. This could be the aforementioned elevator breakage, or a covid lockdown, or power outage. However, anytime eating downstairs remains an option, I’m forced to despite the fact that I tell her that other clients prefer to eat downstairs. She will often stubbornly say that she’s not in charge of what others do and that she doesn’t care what others do, ETC. She will say she only cares about me and that I do what she expects of me. Most times, I will set time limits as to how long I will be down there which start from the second I leave the room. The current set limit is 15 minutes. This means that I will only allow myself 15 minutes to go down there and eat where I must return to my room within that time frame. This often results in me either not eating at all, (which occurs in a case where I go down and my food is not in front of me,) or taking a bite or less of the food before deciding I’m finished in order to fit the allotted time frame. Of course, during this time, the routine of failing to speak only when necessary applies. If for example I have left my room at 5:00, I would need to have returned no later than 5:15. Any longer than this will cause me to feel anxious and upon returning, I will normally undress myself as if I’m in for the night to avoid having to go down again.

Well, I took it upon myself to start eating upstairs for a while, a situation that mom, while not totally ok with this new arrangement, chose to accept. However, after an incident of me choking on food occurred about two weeks ago, the decision of whether or not I should eat downstairs was not mine to make anymore. Mom said I would be forced to eat downstairs no matter what because of this occurrence. Now, I told staff this and they should have put it in the book of notes that they have for each client. However, as many times since then that I’ve eaten downstairs, staff have brought my food up despite me believing them to have known about the permanent change. Today mom caught wind of this during our post work conversation. To make a long story short, the blame was placed squarely on the staff for not following the note that should have been left addressing this as far as I was concerned. When mom blamed me for not telling them, the argument went back and forth between, “they should have known, (me) “you should have told them, it’s your responsibility,” (mom) until she decided to once again wash her hands of telling me anything and giving me advice. This lead me to believe I was being placed in the same category as my younger brother who currently is not on talking terms with her due to family issues. When it was suggested that mom call them herself to address this by me, as I felt it may have a better outcome if she said this to staff as when I have, it has never been listened to or followed, mom said she would not do this as I’m an adult. As this conversation upset me, I called the staff and annoyingly told them to apologize for their mistake in bringing the food up to me to mom where the staff complained that I keep changing the rule. I told them that they fail to follow the note which was never a problem until it got me in trouble with mom.

The thing that gets me and actually, the moral of this story was the response of the staff. This occurred hours ago at this point so I don’t remember what was said exactly but I remember that the staff repeated something that mom has said word for word. Having said that, I can’t for the life of me remember what that was. What makes this even more odd is the fact that the staff in question is also a mother making this a situation where maybe mom really does know best.