Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human In the back of your mind

You have no idea how lucky you are to have a Mom who will at least listen to something worthwhile at your suggestion.

My Mom won't listen to anything I have suggested for fear I might try to "brainwash" her out of how she currently thinks. I should also mention that if there were a Nobel prize for the "Worlds Greatest Worry Wart" my Mom would ace the prize EVERY year.

I've often wondered if the amount of "worry energy" this woman puts out there has any effect on how wonderful or crappy the lives of her children and grandchildren are. Funny, she doesn't seem to worry about HER circumstances, and they remain quite well. In fact, when she does start worrying about that, my brother and I always seem to get her to see that her circumstances are Okay.

However, she worries about everyone else's circumstances, and we are all continually trying to climb out of a financial hole. With the exception of my brother, we are all very positive people in our thinking. To her credit, she is a very generous person, but she also uses that generosity as a "hook" so that none of us will shut her out or off when she gets into her "worry speech". When nothing else works, she's loosing her breathe because we've upset her so much with "our" negativity. (At 80 yo, with a bad ticker, and carrying around well over 300 lbs., we don't like to push our luck that getting her upset might cause her to expire) .

What brought me to say this is your reference "in the back of my mind" because that's exactly how she starts her "worry speech" - "Well, you know, it's been in the back of my mind that if you don't get a job soon, you'll have to come back to live with me" was her last shot at me on my recent trip home. I wonder if it would hurt, just once, for her to think of me as being successful!?!

Unis