(bad) Inheritance
November 12th
My mom was angry today. The moment I walked through the door, she was telling me — “do you know what happened? I spend all morning trying to set an appointment with a specialist. And I couldn’t. They told me my referral is assigned to a different person!”. I was trying to calm her down, telling her that the matter will be resolved. That on Monday she should call her family doctor, who signed the referral, to clarify the matter, and besides, it is not a big deal — the appointment is for next month.
Nothing doing. She kept calling the doctor’s office, the national patient hotline (to complain), aunts who might know something (what exactly?), and all the time her blood pressure was getting higher. She simply wouldn’t let go of it. I could tell it was absolutely consuming her, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. No reasoning was working — she needed to make this appointment right here and now. She wouldn’t accept the fact that somebody, somewhere, made a mistake. It happens. It was not something aimed at her.
She called me an hour ago — all happy! She finally solved the problem — her referral was assigned to a different doctor (with a different specialty) and that’s why she couldn’t make hers. All that could have waited until Monday, when a phone call and a check by her family doctor would resolve this issue. But not — she wouldn’t let go. She kept calling and talking and checking until finally, somebody corrected the mistake. She spent almost a whole day wasting her time and nerves and health just agonizing over a really trivial matter.
Even though she called me all happy that this concern was finally resolved, I got scared. First of all — where is this obsession coming from? Why did she spend all that time over this? My mom shows some early symptoms of dementia (and there is a long history of women on her family side with old age dementia or Alzheimer’s) and that kind of behavior is, of course, a concern. And second — it took a while to get it, but I saw myself in all this as well. I cannot let go of simple, trivial things. I mull them over in my mind constantly until they became an obsession. Like my mom today, I have a need that this particular issue has to be resolved right now, that someone is doing something wrong on purpose just to spite me.
Now I see where I am getting this from. But I think I am in a better position than my mom — I am aware of how absurd this kind of behavior is, and I DO TRY (not always successfully — https://footstepsofthefuries.medium.com/nightmare-7357528fc81) my best to change it. So this is that different kind of inheritance we get from our families. And we get it no matter if we like it or not. And it might be a while before we realize that we copy bad behaviors without a second thought. And it might be even longer while we can change it for the better.
