I hate unexpected phone calls. I didn't always; once I was better at being happy and chattery. Now most phone calls are a source of stress. Partly because of figuring out what to be thinking/saying so that others don't notice my unhappy tone and ask questions I can't answer. Partly because... my parents' phone call conversational styles are frustrating. My mom does the thing where she repeats what she's said, a couple of times. Spiraling into the same fragment of a conversation like she was disatisfied with how it went the first time, so she's trying again to get a different answer. Or maybe she just doesn't remember the first time, in which case I have a hard time believing she'll remember much of anything from the conversation. Which is increasingly alarming, in light of her mom's sudden onset dementia. My dad does that thing where he leaves me a voicemail or a text that says "call me." No hint about the topic of the conversation, so he gets to know what's going on, and I get to go in blind, and we're talking at the speed of verbal communication which means too fast for me to think things through. During the worst years, we had a few short fights about how I needed to pick up the phone when he calls, and how I don't get to just hang up on him when I decide I'm done talking. No, that doesn't mean I get to tell him that I'm done talking and hang up. If he's not done talking, then we're not done talking, because he's paying for the house I'm living and that means he's entitled to a little bit of respect. Shockingly, that does not do wonders for my autonomy. Supposedly he's in a better place than he was then. Out of the stressful, mutually toxic/abusive marriage. Into a better relationship. Reconnecting with his family. Learning a bit about anxiety and depression and other such things from his s.o. and her kids, and looking at me, and himself, in a different light. My grandmother died yesterday, and my mom texted me. I ignored it, until my sister-in-law texted me too; that told me that no, this was something important, so I actually called my mom. My dad called at some point too, a tone in his voice that could be grief or could be frustration with me for not texting/calling him sooner. It's been two weeks since either of us talked, and his last words were that I should communicate with him more. It doesn't seem to occur to him that he can do more to reach out to me. Or it does, but he thinks of the times he did when I was in the worst of my depression (lol what is leaving my room or washing my dishes etc, etc) and he thinks he's tried so much that he's burned out, so it's my job to try. And all he said was "call me." Is it about my grandmother? Is it to complain that I haven't been in touch about the car paperwork? Is it to ask about my job progress? Is it that he heard back from the student loan people and knows how close I am to default and credit score blows again? I don't know. And I fear that, if I ask him to give some indication what he wants the call to be about... I'll get to hear more about respect or some other way of saying that I don't have the right to demand that information. Any advice on diplomatic ways to tell him that going into a phonecall blind stresses me out enough that I'd rather just not call, and let him get pissed off, so that I'm sure he's angry instead of unsure if he'll be angry?
I texted him that I was having a bad day for phone calls, and told him I'd heard from mom. So, if he was calling about my grandmom, he'd know I knew. And if not... maybe he would give a hint what it was about. He replied to my text this morning, and yeah, that's all it was. Making sure I knew to be in touch with mom, so I could hear about when services are. That was the explanation that seemed simple and sensible, but I just couldn't convince my brain it was true.
witnessed ::/ regarding dementia and repeating phrases, that's what my grandmother was like on one specific medicine. like a broken record. she didn't even notice it, i think? dementia is scary af. if its trying to get a different answer from the same phrase, try repeating your answer with the same reflection ::P
