Recently, a family friend in the north end of town’s father passed away. the friend was once my mother’s co worker, and has a son with ASD, higher functioning, but unlike me, is less verbal. Pay attention to the phrase “higher” functioning. I’ve not seen the family in ages, dates back prior to the pandemic as well.

When we came for the visiting hours on Monday, the autistic son came to my mother and cried on her shoulder. My jaw hit the floor. Almost 32 and is his first death too. Part of this was the family was very tight-knit. The friend’s father (who died nearly 11 days ago) was essentially the only child, because. his brother died very early in life. When we saw on the what looked to be a 103″ flat panel screen, there was at least 100 pics if not of his life, serving in the Army, marrying his wife of over 50 years, with several kids and grandchildren.

When I told my mother the news (because the family friend texted me last week) my mother was extremely emotional, hence why things happened last week.

One of the things that came up on Friday, was really interesting to my ears. She told me one of the reasons why she had stayed home was she was concerned that she would go and I’d be all by myself. I counter that’s not a good way of living either, and like I previously posted, I prefer that my mother goes through more proper grieving instead of sleeping in the room where my grandmother hung out.

The other problem I have witnessed is this co-dependency, or perceived co-dependency. Why should an elder parent be so responsible for an adult child, whether or not they have legal guardianship? if you want to put words into this, I call this “clusterfucking”, creating a mess of co-dependency or false assumptions of needs and resources. Special needs parents (or parents of disabled children, whatevs) also get empowered by the need of the child.

It’s no different than a single-vendor-approach to everything or the one-stop-shopping. It’s no different than putting multiple eggs in one basket. My mother has lacked self care by being selfless in places where she really doesn’t need to be, and I need to be less dependent on everybody (and that can be multiple things.)

Now I will be taking more of the burden as I am struggling to take care of myself. My mother quickly stopped calling me “her rock” and now i am getting external pressure to “take care of her”. Yes any hierarchal son should, however while some people say there’s an Only Child Syndrome where they come off really entitled, it’s really a curse, because in reality I have to be the primary caretaker as my mother is acting much older than her age, and this isn’t a joke either.

This is another reason why I have also felt friends and family have to be together, not just one or the other. This is something I was scared was going to happen in December 2019. As I got rid of almost every Londonderry connection, my grandmother was rushed to the hospital for her A-fib condition.

I produced nearly 5 hours of content in 2020 into 2021 exposing the environment of which I grew up. Of course, they would have some justification, or even worse go so far to shame me in comments. Because that’s what happens if someone acts immature and you want to stop the behavior, you shame them. Maybe my perceived entitlement tainted their world view of people that are atypical. Perhaps the feeling is mutual. I hate millennials for sure and it’s really clear they want me to die before my mother too. I just wished they said that!