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I walked into the house the other day and Cassie was reading a book.   Being instantly proud of the wisdom of my 20 year old daughter to be reading rather than remoting the various reality shows which require only an IQ in the double digits, my heart swelled with pride.

On further examination, turns out the book she was reading was called, “The Memory Bible”.

I said, “What’s that about?”  She said, “I’m worried about getting Alzheimer’s, and this book is teaching me how to keep my memory.”

Oh no, here we go again with Cassie’s neurosis about her health.  Lorraine, do you remember when she was in high school and she sent me an urgent text message telling me she needed a HEART SCAN ASAP as she was sure she had clogged arteries?  Or the time she needed an emergency dermatology appointment because she was sure her birthmark was really deadly melanoma in disguise?

So, after I spent a large amount of time trying to convince Cassie there was nothing to be concerned about, the next day, Brent, the 25 year-old sends me an article about how to prevent Alzheimer’s.

Is there a message here?  Fine, I admit it.  My mother had Alzheimer’s, two of her sisters have or had Alzheimer’s, her father had it.  Why am I not paranoid or neurotic about this?

I asked my son if he was worried about my memory.  He assured me he wasn’t, just that he was worried about my brothers and sisters.  Sounds like a cover up to me.

So, all this is backlash from my 30’s when I was neurotic and had self-Munchausen’s disorder when I was sure the tingling in my feet (a result of my addictive overuse of  Stairmaster’s) was being caused by a spinal cord tumor that was going to kill me at any minute. 

It’s one thing to be a silent neurotic—I mean when you’re a mom, you need to keep the duct tape handy and keep these premonitions of doom to yourself.  But NO, NOT ME, I had to SHARE this with my young impressionable children at the dinner table with outbursts like,  “I’m going to die of a spinal cord tumor!”

Dave should have committed me then and there before I passed on the “there’s something wrong with me” phobias.

And why don’t I ever obsess and worry about Alzheimer’s given my family history?

All I think about are the worry wrinkle lines between my eyes and how I can save enough money for the next Boot treatment.

Talk about denial!  Is there some clinical name for people who worry about things they shouldn’t and don’t worry about things they should!

Lorraine, don’t say a word.  Just leave me alone to keep company with my denial and my wrinkles…

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 7:03 am and is filed under Boomerang Baggage, Daily Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.