Skies not clear yet....(not referring to the haze!)

Ok everyone, you can all come out from hiding now. The drama between me and Gerald is over, or at least, I hope it is. We took time out from talking to each other for one week, and during that time, he talked to other people to try and understand why I was so upset about certain things he said to me. I still don't understand why people even have to explain such things to him coz' far as I know, anybody can understand how I felt. *Sigh* Anyway, at the end of it, he did understand a bit more and apologized to me, and the fact that he made the effort to try and understand why I was so mad, even when it probably was embarassing for him to tell other people, it does speak for itself. I shall not go into the details here, but I'll just say now that we are ok and still together, and see how things go from here.

Anyway, I seem to be getting more than my fair share of conflicts these past few weeks. My mum just recently got into one of her fits on Saturday night while we were out for dinner at a nice restaurant with some relatives. Her brother had decided to give a treat to my parents and I, as well as another uncle's family, my brother and my sis-in-law. And my mum and her siblings all have, what my dad would call, 'strong' characters, such that every time we have two or more of them are in the same room, a heated and high volume discussion always breaks out between them. It's like a tradition during family gatherings with her three brothers and sister. It's bad enough if just two of them are together. Should all five of them be in the same room, everybody else will have little or no chance to say anything to them or to anyone else coz' the sound of their nonstop arguing will drown out any other conversation. Trust me, this is not an exaggeration.

Anyway, Saturday night, my mum's eldest bro and her sister wasn't around to join in the frays, but my mum and her other brothers were at it again as usual. This time, my uncle who was giving the treat (I call him 'Yee Kau Fu' or 2nd uncle) was saying that he might be going to Dubai to work coz' he's an engineer and there are more opportunities there compared to locally. Then my mum went on to say that it would be dangerous to go there coz' it is a Middle Eastern country and their neighbours are full of terrorists so the risk of terrorist attacks are high. But my uncle disagreed with her, saying that it would be like foreigners refusing to come to Malaysia because Thailand was hit by bombs. To him, Dubai is an advanced country, and even though he can't definitely guarantee that they won't be hit by terrorist attacks, it is relatively safe and mum does not need to be scared. And even though I didn't say anything, I actually agreed with my uncle coz' I don't see the point in refusing to go somewhere or doing certain things when the chances of something awful happening are actually quite slim. But my mum didn't seem to want to accept his logic and still said she would still never go to Dubai, just to be 'safe'. Anyway, to cut a long heated discussion short, both my uncles agreed with each other and was trying to convince my mum of to see their point of view, and when she still didn't, they said that she is so stubborn she refuses to accept knowledge from other people coz' she thinks she's always right. And they also said things like she is living under a coconut shell and she is stupid to think the way she does. The whole time, nobody else at the table said anything, we all just listened. But from the expression on everyone's face, I could see that most of my other relatives didn't agree with my mum either. And the discussion got so heated that I actually found it amusing at how they can blow up at each other over a small matter like this. But at one point, my other uncle (the one not giving the treat) called her selfish (which was the only thing I didn't agree with, coz' my mum is a lot of things, but I don't think it was fair to call her selfish) and that was the breaking point for my mum. She started crying and asking why they were 'attacking' her character instead of discussing the issue. She banged the table and almost wanted to walk off. Soon after that, we all went home, and she was still crying all the way home and didn't say a word.

The next day, I woke up to find her on the couch in the living room, and obviously still crying. And when I got her a cup of water, she suddenly said that I was the one who hurt her the most coz' I not only didn't support her last night, but I was also laughing to myself at some points. Which is true, I was laughing, because of the silliness of the whole argument, of my mum's reactions and because of some of the rather illogical things I thought she was saying. It's not that I am purposely disagreeing with my mum for the fun of it... I just don't agree with her and therefore how can I support her in such a situation? Especially whn everyone else sitting there also seemed to think she was being illogical. But to her, it was my job as her daughter to support her, but I didn't. I just don't get it. Even when I don't say anything, I can get scolded by my mum. I try to respect my elders and keep the peace by not taking part in their silly argument, but she expects me to openly tell my uncles off for saying such things to my mum. And then, after she was done scolding me and I had to go out to church, she went on to scold my dad for all sorts of other things. Basically, she ends up making it out like everyone did something wrong to her while she herself didn't say or do anything wrong at all. Good grief.

It's hard to explain the exact situation here, but this problem with my mum's behaviour has been going on for so long. She has a problem where if anybody tells her she is wrong, she won't even stop to think if they might be right and she needs to change. She will straight away get angry and fire the other person. And if it seems that the other person is actually talking sense and she might be 'losing' the discussion, she does extreme things like refusing to talk to them and cutting herself off from them. She's done that to my dad before, and after Saturday's dinner, she told him that she didn't want to go for dinner with her brother anymore ever again. That's not the worst of it. I've seen her get so miserable after a 'lost' argument, that she drank half a bottle of brandy at one shot, which is extremely bad for health. And according to my dad, once after an argument, she said she wanted to die and threatened to jump out the window. There's just so many abnormal things about her behaviour that hurts her and everyone around her, and now I think she reacts so extremely coz' of some psychological disorder. My dad has always tried to advise her, and I've tried to talk sense to her, but she refuses to listen, and she refuses to get counselling. Right now, all she wants to do is withdraw into her own little world and minimise her contact with the people around her, which includes her own family, just to avoid getting into conflict. My dad and I are at our wits end, and I think the only thing that can possibly help her now is divine intervention.

*Sigh*, sorry my blog entries have been so sad lately. I must try and blog a but more happy stuff now. But then I'm so busy at work, not much time to blog too, and that's another story. But through all the negative stuff, I'm glad I have lotsa people I can talk to and are willing to listen (or read) my sad crap and give me advice, and I'm so grateful for that. Seriously, if not for you guys, I think I might have gone bonkers long time ago. :P Oh well, tomorrow is a holiday, and as I have been superbly busy for so long, going out everyday... I think I will use tomorrow to try and do absolutely nothing... just so I can recharge. The only thing I might do is go to church and practice my drumming, since I'm starting to play drums at church, and so far I play 'ok' but not 'excellent' and my drumming skills still need a plenty of fine tuning. Plus, there's no better way to destress than to hit stuff, so yeah, it's a good plan. :D Happy holiday, all you people in Selangor. And for everyone who's not in Selangor and has to work, well, Hari raya and Deepavali holidays are coming soon, so don't be too sad. :D