Basically what's been happening is that I've been getting extremely worried about several things. 1) Her eating habits 2)Her attitude towards rebuttal and 3)Her mentality about having a proper routine and diet.
1).See, the scenario is that she always complains about not having lunch or breakfast for that matter which she thinks gives her the right to have a VERY heavy dinner (almost the equivalent of what I eat after training). This is a very big concern because apart from scrubbing the clothes in the bathroom, she's basically plonked in front of the tv on the couch every single day. And this isn't an excuse NOT to have a proper breakfast or lunch because she just doesn't move much and she IS turning sedentary, Dad.
Just tonight she had a 2 portions of rice, along with half a fist's worth of chicken, another half's worth of egg, broccolli and fish. After which she had half a glass of lemonade (which is very high in sugar) and an orange- for which I would have considered as desert. Sounds healthy and everything but what stunned me was the fact that she took out a cup of yoghurt from the mini fridge and the way she was slurping up the sides of the cup where the globs of yoghurt were actually reflected that she ws eating not in moderation, but in the way in which an obese kid would devour a cheeseburger.
Pa, really, if you can do anything, please advise her to not skip meals and eat properly. Because I feel that proper nutritional calculation needs to be done. The rice and the sides for dinner would already have easily given 1200 calories(20gms of possible fat included), the lemonade and the yoghurt would have added another easy 300 which would give you 1500 in total. The worst part is that she lies down all the time, right after eating which also affects her spinal posture.
Assuming that we dont count what she possibly ate prior to dinner, that's already MORE than half of her daily required caloric intake at dinner, IN ONE MEAL ALONE. Pa, it's really very scary to see that her belly is beginning to resemble more closely the exercise balls(the big inflatable ones) I use for my therapy. And note that her actual physical activity and caloric OUTPUT, is relatively close to zero! Let's face the reality of things right now. In one evening, she consumes this much. It may not seem alot, but it is the accumulation of such that does the damage; which will mean to say that if she keeps this up, very grave future medical complications would arise Dad, the most probable being Diabetes, Stroke or Cardiac Arrest. Osteoporosis might take place if her weight continues to increase. And another thing that really got me worried and silently angry was that I was not only chided for trying to bring this up, but that even shock tactics did not seem to work for Ma.
I just hope that you understand all this somehow and what I'm trying to drive home because for once, I really want to sound serious and not be brushed off as a boy who's just shooting his mouth off and acting smart. If you can help ma start NOW and begin to implement proper eating habits, i.e. regular breakfast lunch and dinner (snacking not included), then we can help to save her life in the future. "
The purpose of this entry serves to show the current situation about the relationship between my mother and I. After much contemplation, I have decided that I had to disclose this to the public reading this because I just felt it is time I desperately need an avenue to vent frustration bottled up within me.
If you take the time to read the excerpt from a recent email I sent to my dad -who is currently working overseas in Papua New Guinea-, you would notice two things:
- The subject of discussion (my mom)
- What is currently happening to my mom
Firstly, as a sports student and an athlete, I take my nutrition very seriously. And in a relative context, it is something I would probably regard as something I could remember like the back of my hand so-to-speak. And it is with growing concern that I wrote the email to my dad because I felt that he was the only one who could communicate a message I wanted to bring across without being thrown aside.
Logical choice? Well, my father, he IS my mom's closest companion and spouse IS he not?
So assuming that everything would fall into plan- send dad email, dad conveys message, tries to push for change, improve mother's health and lifestyle-, I clicked 'Send'. What happened next was just disrespectful, shameless and discouraging.
I came back home from Church and my sister tells me that my mom's angry because of what my supposedly told her. I.e. She got the email all right; I don't think she understood the message contained within though. And here's where I begin bearing the brunt of my mother's rotten character and disgusting temper which flares up easier than a lighted match on kerosene.
I'm sorry, I just mean to say she just FLIPPED. Doors slamming, eyes glaring, EVERYTHING that could spell B-I-T-C-H (I just spelt it in case you didn't realise), happened. And the cuz de gras took place when she just said, "You're all hypocrites..ALL of you. Call yourselves Christian. Just bloody hypocrites!"
And I'm like, "Whoa whoa whoa..what the hell gives YOU the right to call me a hypocrite? What did I do wrong?"
She replies, "Who gave you the right to send Daddy that email?? What gives YOU the right to (and I quote) 'Call me lazy'?? You're not even at home to see what I'm doing and you paint such a bad picture about me to Pa?? What are you trying to do? Hah? Trying to get him to go after another woman is it!?"
To say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is a gross understatement. Now, if you read the entire email, NEVER once did I say she was lazy. As stinging or as brutally honest that email was, it was never meant as an act of disrespect nor condescendance. As a son, what could you expect me to do? Sit down, shut up, keep quiet and be stupid about it? I'd tell you to fuck off because my mom's health is at stake and there's no way I'd lie to myself or to her about it.
I ask for your pardon for my French here but what really got to me was the fact that she took out her anger on my religion. To call me and label Christians as hypocrites out of the blue is just not the way to go. Sure, we ALL sin (and there's no denying this) but I go to church every week and I ask for forgiveness. I sit down by my bed every alternate day to reflect upon my life and again, I ask for forgiveness if I have done anything wrong because I am NOT perfect. I don't sit in Heaven and govern things and take order because I am NOT perfect. But I felt that I had decision to make when I chose to send that email.
And I tried to get a message across to a loved one, only to get scolded, chided, rejected and basically have my concern spat back at my face with sheer misinterpretation.
Remember what I was saying about nutrition and all that hubbub? Again, read the email and you will understand the gravity of the situation. Of course, I don't hold a Ph.D in Nutrition but I do read and hold enough knowledge to make very decent and sensible calculations in peoples' diets because for one, it doesn't take a genius to do that and two, I have been putting my thoughts and words into practice- I belong to a weight sport, manipulating my own weight comes into mind doesn't it? But what also got to me was how my mom just did not want to listen or come to reason with facts and how she wanted to argue about something she knew nothing about (as long as it isn't laid out on a plate to her). In this case, dietary requirements and needs.
Thus, it dawned on me that I couldn't get anything through to her simply because of her unwillingness to admit that she has a problem and is not choosing to help herself. Choosing to think that she knows more than about what's good for the body and what's not is not a very smart thing to do. You guys who read this, you should even be counting yourselves lucky you don't have a mother like mine. Even if you do, you havn't been around -put it crudely- to shovel 18 years of shit and all its worth. I don't deny that 18 years with my mom have been VERY enriching and enlightening but I also don't deny that only recently, things have become a whole lot worse.
And if there is anyone who can relate to this, would you feel free to state your views or try to help? Jie, if you read this, please try to empathise with me. I really don't understand why I am getting blown with unnecessary and inappropriate angst.
