The problem of “don’t ask” just from fearing no

This evening I went into a terrible temper tantrum when my mother complained that I left cooking rissoles for tonight’s dinner until they were seriously overcooked and smelling.

The tantrum, with familiar phrases (mantras) like:

“get the word “can” out of your head”

“there’s no such word as “can””

and less familiar mantras like

“I used to be able to [remember to come down] but I can’t now”

and gestures like trying to place the word “can” in the rubbish bin in the kitchen [by pointing to the rubbish bin in a terribly agitated manner], became so bad that I even walked out of the house without my mobile phone! Outside I was just as angry and agitated — trying basically to make my mother recognise that I was totally incapable of reminding myself that I had cooking to remember when I was sitting at the very computer where I am writing this post.

My mother was just as upset as I was — and I might note that she has not been well in recent weeks, having mucus-y coughs for the past week or more. It has been difficult for me to appreciate her troubles, but I hope I becoming less bad at it.

After I came back — deliberately knocking softly in order to, as it were, persuade my mother that I had calmed down — I did speak much more calmly about the issue. I enjoy cooking, but my mother had said that I might have to give it up if I forget it time and time again as I have been doing for the past few weeks.

When I look at it logically, I recognise how I was obsessed with watching football and possessed zero desire to do the cooking. I simply wished to watch the football and listen to music as I had been doing for many hours before I went out to walk the dog, but feared my mother’s opinion too much to say “no”. So, I did the cooking as quickly as possible and was quite lucky in fact not to burn the spring onion, celery and mushroom mix that was to be mixed with the mince to make the rissoles. Although I said to Mummy that I would come back when I put the rissoles in the oven, I immediately and totally forgot as soon as I was back settled at the computer watching football. There was not the slightest thought about what was happening inside the oven until the DVD was finished. So unconcerned was I that I was actually surprised that the rissoles had nearly burned over!

Once I came back, realising that I could not keep screaming and screaming outside, and even feeling my vocal cords somewhat weakened, I tried to talk to my mother about what needs to be done to give some hope this will not happen as consistently as it has been of late. I am probably reasonably convinced that there is no hope I can be instructed to remember to come down when I am totally focused on listening to music or on watching football (of course, anything I am watching on the computer would have the same effect as football!). Both of us were extremely upset at the way I expected my mother to be a “lackey” upon whom we can fall back whenever I forget cooking jobs that I do just to please her when my actual desire is to listen to music or watch something on the computer. I actually say I want to cook to appease my mother when I actually want to spend all day doing exactly what I want — which, today, was to watch football.

However, the most notable lesson from tonight’s tempera tantrum was that my consistent refusal to ask my mother whether she would either:

1. remind me by coming up to the study or
2. look after my cooking

out of fear of being told “no” is really, really bad. It might be wise because I know all too well that if my mother said “no” I would most likely go straight into a meltdown as bad as today’s. However, my deliberate silence has meant that my mother and I are both left ignoring the cooking with risks of burning. When I look at it, I thought of the many old English cricketers — for example Walter Brearley or George Louden — who would likely have greatly improved England’s prospects in Australia but were never questioned about touring because MCC was sufficiently aware they had zero possibility of being away from business for so long. My case is different because I have never tried — out of partially justifiable fear of being told “no” — to ask my mother to watch over my cooking. Instead, I assume she will do so as my slave. When in a tantrum, of course, I justify it as a “one-way street” where I can do and get exactly what I want one hundred percent of the time, although logically this “one-way street” is totally selfish and makes everybody else totally immaterial. It is clear to me — whether I cam capable of change or not (and I have zero belief I am) — that I must do something to prevent me forgetting my cooking, or develop some sort of compromise where I do the preparation and my mother agrees to watch over the cooking. In a logical mood these compromises are terribly unfair to my mother, but given my lack of genuine interest in cooking it is unclear what else we can do??