Phone Calls

I received five phone calls from my Grandma yesterday. She was having a very bad day.

She has recently moved house and downsized to a small retirement unit. She decided yesterday that all of her things had been stolen and she had been lied to. She was adamant about seeking legal advice. She even threatened to try to kill herself again if she couldn’t get her beautiful possessions back.

Receiving five phone calls a day from my Grandma is typical. I have no problem at all chatting to her each day when she’s well – even five times each day when she asks me the same questions over and over again. I’m a patient person and am willing to make all the time in the world for her. But on the bad days it gets hard. On these days she is completely irrational, hysterical and abusive. She screams negative and destructive things down the phone at me and sobs that she doesn’t want to live.

It’s not so hard to figure out what I should say to her, the answer is very clear. Nothing. She didn’t ring me for help; she rang to yell and scream, vent her emotions at me and hopefully feel better. There’s no real point in speaking, she can’t even hear me when she’s like this. I believe she is totally oblivious that there is even another human being on the other end of the phone line. On the rare occasions that I try to respond and inject a small amount of reason into her tirade of pessimism and negativity – slam – the phone goes dead. She’s hung up on me more times than I can count.

This is where my patience falters, I feel abused. I stop short of being rude but find myself asking her, “What do you want me to do about it? What are you asking of me?”

These words cause me a lot of guilt later one when I feel calmer. I love her dearly and I would never want her to suffer alone. I would love to be able to be there for her but the abusive behavior takes its toll. Some night’s, after Grandma has had a bad day, I find it difficult to sleep. When I do manage to sleep I have nightmares. I spend sometimes all day in a strange head space, not feeling at all like myself.

Generally (like most people I suspect) when I feel this way I talk to my mum. She always has the right answers, and she never fails to make me feel at ease. She’s wonderful and talking to her makes me feel balanced again, like me again. She has a much harder run of it then I do. She tells me it is her job to be listening to these phone calls and not mine. That I am not responsible for her and she shouldn’t be ringing her grand-daughter like this. Mum wants to limit the ‘fall out zone’ that surrounds mental illness and limit the impact on my sister and I, and my little nieces.

Then comes the awkwardness of Mum ringing Grandma to tell her that no matter how bad she is feeling she can’t be ringing the kids like this. “You will not be hanging up on them. K is still young and she doesn’t need your pessimism and negativity in her day. If you need to talk to someone, you ring me. It’s absolutely okay to ring me at any time”.

While I must admit I am grateful that it works for a little while, the downside is that when I speak to my Grandma - even on her good days - she treats me like a small child. She treats me as though I am fragile and she shouldn’t say anything that might upset me for fear I’ll run and tell my mum.

What it comes down to in the end is that I would like a real relationship with my Grandma, without the abusive content. It seems an unrealistic goal. I want her to be comfortable enough to be who she is and say what she wants to say but I don’t want to fill my head with somebody else’s destructive thinking.

So, I need to learn to set effective boundaries. I can be kind a loving to my Grandmother and still withdraw from situations that I am uncomfortable with, before becoming distressed myself. This is a life skill that I am generally pretty good at but it gets incredibly hard in the case of mental illness. Next time my Grandma calls me threatening suicide I will tell her that I am unable to talk to her while she’s in this state. If she needs immediate help, she should contact her case worker but for now I am unable to help until she is in a calmer state.

I need to realize that I am neither the cause nor the solution for her situation. I love her and will be there for her when I can help, but not when she’s out of control.

I’d like to know how have other people in the same situation have managed this?

K