Nervous Nelly

In what kids call "the old days", one of the names you might be called was "nervous nelly".  In today's language, the "Nervous Nelly" meme satirizes someone who is chronically anxious, over-analyzes every situation, and jumps to worst-case scenarios.

For me, that comes as mom.  I don't know what winds her up, but so many things do.

A visit to the doc?  Yep.  Someone coming to visit? Yep.  A new medication? Yep.  It's too hot to be outside? Yep.  You name it, it makes her nervous. And frankly, its all in her head. Which I have been repeatedly told by her, there's nothing wrong with my mind.  Uh huh. 

We all feel anxious at times. I have many self taught ways to combat those feelings.  Deep breathing. Walking. Reading. Sometimes even TV.  But mom has never been able to break her cycles.  

And we've tried it ALL.  Snapping a rubber band.  Deep breathing (she says she can't do it). Ice cubes under her armpits. Walking. TV seems to make her worse.  

And once the cycle starts, it goes through many stages. Whimpering moves to crying.  She tries sipping water, but swallowing more air than water which leads to burps and belly aches.  

I've watched it many, many times over in the past 18+ months.  Nothing I say works, she gets upsets, says I'm being critical.  

Now when she asks if I think a Tums would work, I tell her I don't know. Because I don't.  She can't seem to articulate what's wrong, isn’t able to identify what her mind has been trolling over. So the source of her anxiety is left .... untreated, for lack of a better word.

While I dislike seeming mom in distress, I have had to learn to just live with, go with the flow.  There's nothing I can fix if she can't admit there's a problem.  Even when she mentioned to her nurse she wasn't feeling well, nurse asks what's wrong and she says I don't know.  *shrug*

So, I just chalk it up to her nervous nelly ways, and try to let it go. Repeated tries to help just make her feel worse.