She won’t drink water.
Its unclear where mental illness stops and my mom begins. There used to be a clear line. When she would open up all of the windows in the house to ‘air it out’ on a day the mercury barely reached 50 °, we knew the wheels had come off the wagon. When she started obsessing about the Bible, we knew her meds were off. When there were too many tears for no apparent reason, we knew it was time for the hospital. But ever since the sly fox of paranoia bellied up to the table fifteen years ago, we found ourselves caught in a game we can’t possibly win.
We used to know when mom started and crazy stopped. Now, there is a mucky grey area instead of a line. Now we simply measure shallow end versus deep end of the crazy pool as she hasn’t stopped treading in years.
“The city water is bad,” she says and she won’t drink it in any form. Not from the tap, not from a filter, not from a bottle allegedly from the French Alps. A tiny breath of relief escapes as she finds nothing wrong with milk at this time.
Perhaps the insurance company will finally see, after four hospitalizations this year, that her mental illness will not get any better (or any cheaper for them) without significant changes to her outpatient care.
Oh mental illness, I hate you.
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