"It's not cooked," she says, as another slice of pot roast peels off the side like another layer of onion.

"That's cooked."

"No, it isn't," she insists. "See how pink that is," she remarks disgustedly.

I'm getting angry now. No, not angry--frustrated. "It's FINE."

Ever the peacemaker, my father offers to fry up several of the pinker slices to "cook" them, but the chef in me will not have it. The artistic integrity of the dish--both in terms of ingredients and in terms of execution--must not be destroyed.

"That will ruin it," I say, bitterly, channeling the inner artist who has just been told that his latest work should be changed to be more commercial, more acceptable to the general public. "That will dry it out and make it taste like SHIT."

My mother picks up a hunk of meat and inspects it with eagle eyes.

"It's COOKED," I say harshly, almost screaming, as she cautiously takes a bite out of it. And then--

POCK! I feel a dull stinging sensation on my chest. I look down, and there is a stain on my t-shirt where a piece of pork has just landed.

I sneer at her while she stomps off towards the couch.

Bitch.

I eat my dinner in silence as my father pan-fries the meat and my mother stares at--or rather, towards--the television, altogether intensely and blankly.

Every year, it seems she is getting more neurotic. I don't know if it's pathological or if it's just the menopause, but I can't stand it. I can't stand having her as a passenger in my car because she starts fretting when a car several car-lengths away starts to change lanes on the highway. I can't stand her growing paranoia over cleanliness and sterility, as if she's doing my sister a favor by preventing her immune system to develop resistance against a wide array of germs. I can't stand the way she can't ride elevators or stay in rooms above the second or third stories above the ground floor in hotels.

I can't stand what she's becoming.

There's a history of mental illness in my family. My aunt--my mother's sister--is suffering from... something. It isn't really talked about in great detail. Ever Filipino, we don't talk about problems. Because if we don't talk about them, they don't exist. They disappear.

But I can't not talk about it any longer. Because if this is genetic, there's always the chance that I may be catching a glimpse into my own future. My proximate future may involve taking care of her in varying degrees of dementia, which I dread. A more distant future may involve me slowly losing my mind, which I also dread, albeit less because if that happens, chances are I won't notice it anyway so it wouldn't really matter to me.

These thoughts scare me.

And they make it seem like arguing over whether or not a piece of meat is cooked is completely insignificant in comparison.

And that makes me sad.

Aww... So sorry to hear that. It's frustrating to life with people with mental illness of any sort but when they are family, that is what we need to live with. *hugs* I hope things will be better..

Let's start a slapping frenzy!!! I'd love to slap some people up! ^___^
» Nuttz on 2007-11-06 02:45:04

Gotta love that... my mom does that a lot as well, the random freaking over this that or other.
» ikimashokie on 2007-11-06 02:16:23

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29435
» Zanzibar on 2007-11-07 12:24:10

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