She’s Missing
by Jordan Merenick
My mother is missing. Not in the glamorous sexy way of being plastered over billboards or talked about in true crime podcasts that, of course, would have been so much easier and digestible to handle. No, my mom is missing inside her brain's synaptic highways. She struggles and gets lost inside the wilderness of her own peculiar brand of paranoia. But it is not so severe that she can be institutionalized. It is such a gray area, sadly.
Webster's Dictionary defines paranoia as: mental illness characterized by systematized delusions of persecution or grandeur, usually without hallucinations. But, I've found that it is way more complicated than that. Paranoia is a mist or vapor. My mom can be having a completely normal conversation with me, and then the paranoia can take over her cerebral cortex drenching the atmosphere with its spiked droplets.
What does my mother believe? What doesn’t she believe is a better question? Cause she believes at any given time that her neighbors, the garbage man, and the mail carrier are all involved inside a vast network of conspiracy against her.
Furthermore, each time a negative event happens, in her world she automatically blames her neighbors. It could be as simple as her cellphone running slow. Or maybe she miscalculated the amount of money in her savings account. It does not matter. Her neighbors are responsible for this latest calamity.
What confounds this matter is how guilty I feel about this situation. It seems like I unintentionally aided and abetted this. I thought once if I listened to her ramblings, it would help her. You know if she got this off her chest in a safe environment which my father is unable to provide then her brain would flip back to normal.
But, the truth was that my own theory of therapy was clumsy and quite stupid. Each time I listened and nodded sympathetically to my mother’s latest incident, it simply reinforced whatever my mother’s misfiring brain was already screaming. Now, she wouldn't hear me if I tried to speak the truth.
Additionally, it’s so sad and heartbreaking since my mother was such a bad ass growing up. Not only did she decide that the local drug infested school system was not good enough for me and my brother, but she also took part in a local neighbor watch which took down a local nuisance bar. She also handled not only multiple miscarriages with aplomb but also the death of her parents within six months of each other during this time period. If you knew my mother from 2000 to 2019, you’d would have been impressed by her fierce spirt and iron will.
Yet, all of that has changed. She is now afraid to leave the house. She whispers inside her living room afraid of any electronic bugs. She’s become a prisoner inside the world of her own making. And it’s all so bizarre.
In the end, I am struck by how helpless I am. How I can not in the slightest bring about any sort of meaningful change. All I can do is watch respectfully from the sidelines as she disappears further and further into this incurable darkness which she has curated.
—Jordan Merenick